At co-op this year, I have the privilege of teaching two logic & critical thinking classes – one for high school and one for middle school.  We’re having a great time together!  I promised a little look inside that class, so here goes.

I’m doing similar things for both classes – expecting more depth, harder activities, a little homework and a few tests for the high school class.  We’re:

• completing logic matrix puzzles,
• learning about logical fallacies,
• playing critical thinking games, and
• solving mysteries.

Both classes began with a Biblical understanding about why it’s so important for Christians to learn to think critically and how the Bible proves that fact to us.  We discussed and memorized Bible verses based on this important article by Nathaniel Bluedorn.

Each week finds us doing something different and exciting.  I’m using activities and ideas from various resource books, most of which are below.  You’ll notice some of the books are meant for upper elementary students.  I’ve found these are a good place to start with my middle school class which consists of 5th-8th graders, most having never enjoyed logic & critical thinking before.

I’ve used this mini-unit from ABC Teach (with some additions) in my high school class, too.

At least once a month, I simply bring games that reinforce logic & critical thinking.  The kids love learning new games and you can’t beat the super-fun method for learning!

 Once I take more pictures, I’ll share another look-see into the class!

You might also be interested in reading my reviews of logic materials posted over at The Curriculum Choice.

• Foxmind Games
• Lollipop Logic
• The Fallacy Detective and The Thinking Toolbox
• Logic Games
• Prufrock Press Logic Resources

Don’t forget, you can learn more about HOW to add living math (including logic) to your homeschool in Loving Living Math!

Some of you know that our co-op hosts a yearly competition expo.  We love taking part and the photos below show my children’s entries this year.

Mahayla

Chocolate Cream Pie

Honey Oatmeal Yeast Bread

Acrylic Painting

Knitted Doily

Caleb

Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Acorn Forest Wood Project

Paper Craft

3-D Animal Cell

Eli

3-D Fish

Hot Rocks Painting

And my sweet parents who helped organize the art competition.

This year, we brought potluck food for lunch and our wonderful hostess opened up her pool after the festivities.  My children always look forward to this fun day, but the pool made it extra-special!

Little ones enjoyed their own pool while the big kids played games.

• Tug-of-war
• Long Jump
• Softball Throw
• 50 Yard Dash
• Three-legged Race
• Sack Race
• Obstacle Course

The moms sign up to either work a station or escort classes from station to station.  Those who escort also keep records of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place so ribbons can be given out at the end of the day.  Everyone gets a participation ribbon so they don’t feel left out if they don’t place in any of the events.  The escort also gets to decide who receives special awards at the end of the day for things like Most Enthusiastic, Most Encouraging, Most Christ-like Attitude and a few others.

We have a little awards ceremony and snack celebration to finish the day.  It’s a long co-op day, but very much worth it!

This year’s projects for Caleb included two art projects, a *huge* birdhouse and a derby pie.  The pictures of the art projects didn’t turn out, but you can see the other two below.

Two of Mahayla’s art project pictures also didn’t turn out, but her photography entry did.  You can also see her knitting entry and hummingbird cake.

We’ll find out in a couple of weeks how/if they placed at a little awards ceremony.  This is always one of our favorite co-op events!

Each child was supposed to choose either an historical character from the movie or a character based on one of the time periods covered in the movie.  They were asked to dress like their character and bring some sort of food representing their era.  There was a place to display projects they completed about their character/time period and we gave them each a few minutes to share what they’d learned.

After lunch from the food brought and sharing of projects, all the kids nestled in to watch the movie.  What a great time!

Do you have any other ideas for academic themed parties like this?

Even my husband doesn’t give me flowers!  But the sweet and wonderful ladies of co-op gave me a send-off after our last mom’s room meeting that included not only these lovely flowers, but a shower of cards and gifts, too.  And this weekend at our Spring Program, Cathy gave me a lovely gift, but more importantly, lovely parting words.  Oh, how I’ve loved this group of ladies!  Oh, how I’ve loved the mom’s room ministry!  God couldn’t have placed a more perfect situation in front of me and because of that, I went to every meeting full of excitement and thankfulness.

Why did I step away from it you ask?  After all, I’ve known for years that God was preparing my heart for women’s ministry.  I’ve prayed for years that He would open wide the doors for me to use my talents.  I was given the opportunity to not only be in a unique sort of women’s ministry, but was able to teach about teaching (my passion) and encourage homeschoolers (another passion) at the same time.

Why?  Well, God and I haven’t gotten to the full answer to that question yet.  But, one thing I know for sure, He has never failed me yet and I don’t expect He will this time either.  If asking me to leave a ministry like the mom’s room means He has even more perfect work for me to do, then I will go forth gladly.  Gladly, but still with a heavy heart.  At least for now.  I love my friends from co-op as much as I love the job I had at co-op.  If nothing else, it’s simply hard to walk away from something that’s been a wonderful part of your life for five years.

But, I go knowing that the Lord’s work is more important than my wants.  I go knowing that friends can still be friends even if I don’t see them every week.  I go knowing that the doors won’t be locked if I need to go back.  I go knowing that the Lord will soon enough reveal to me the answer of “Why?”

To hopefully lighten up the tone of this post, here are some pictures from our Spring Program.  It’s a wonderful night of performances, pictures and food. 

Here are a few pictures from the night.  Mahayla entered knitting, science fair, cooking – pies, and art – painting, crafts and printing.  Caleb entered wood construction, cooking – cakes, and art – printing and crafts.  We’ll have a fun ceremony in a couple of weeks where the kids will find out if they placed.  Pretty ribbons and certificates are given to all winners and participants.  They make for a nice addition to a yearly portfolio.

How do you schedule a Charlotte Mason-style day?

Short answer:  Any way you want!  LOL

Longer answer:  If we’re talking a true CM day, it will be characterized by the following:

-short bookwork lessons (10-30 minutes depending on the age of the child and the subject)

-daily lessons in Bible, copywork, math, language arts, foreign language

-weekly or more lessons in science, history

-bookwork finished in the morning hours

-afternoons spent outdoors with free play or nature study, handicrafts, reading, etc.

-time scheduled throughout the week for nature study, artist/composer study

I’m not a CM “purist”, but our day usually goes something like this:

Chores – aka Life Skills

Bible

Bookwork – which isn’t necessarily workbooks.  This includes everything from math to language to unit study.

Lunch

Family Reading  – sometimes quiet time reading

Art/Nature/Handicrafts – sometimes guided, sometimes free

FREE Time

Here are some sample schedules from Simply Charlotte Mason.

Here’s another sample from Deborah Taylor-Hough.

I realize this post is fairly vague.  Since I don’t do CM education to a “T”, I don’t want to mislead anyone.  Also, my opinion as you’ve heard my say 1,000 times, is that your homeschool should be your homeschool.  Incorporate what you want to incorporate in a way that really works for your family.  A Charlotte Mason-style education is a wonderful path to take with your children, though, I can’t deny that!

I’ve been incredibly blessed this year to help Cathy out by leading the Mom’s Room.  The best way I can describe the Mom’s Room is in a series of words and phrases: prayer, devotions, homeschool information, homeschool workshops, marriage support, parenting support, homemaking support, friendships, encouragement……

Every year, we’ve always held a banquet (similar to a mother/duaghter banquet you might have a church) to honor the mothers.  It was a hard act to follow to organize the banquet myself after so many years of being pampered and uplifted by Cathy!  But, I pray that everyone was blessed and encouraged by our day Monday.  I went home exhausted, but incredibly blessed, too.

Nancy Carter was our speaker for the day, and let me tell you, her message on grace was perfect!  She spoke about the importance of remembering God’s grace as we strive to be great moms, wives, and homeschoolers.  And reminded us to show the same grace to our families in good or not-so-good moments.

Two thoughts really stood out in my mind from her talk:

-DON’T compare yourself to others, whether it’s as a mom or a homeschooler or whatever.  If God had intended for your children to have different parents, He would have given them different parents.

-Treat your family with grace whether they “deserve” it or not.

Not only did Nancy, and her lovely friend Candace, drive nearly 3 1/2 hours to be with us – they came bearing gifts as well!    Nancy brought The Old Schoolhouse Magazine for each of the ladies and Candace’s husband donated a copy of his The Star Spangled State Book and Workbook for a door prize! 

I promised to share the lyrics to a song our 5/6th grade choir sang.  The author is Zac G. and the original words can be found here.

Song

“We Are the Homeschool Kids Who Can’t Do Anything” – sung to the tune of the Veggie Tales “Pirates” song.

Chorus

We are the homeschool kids who can’t do anything

We just stay at home and do our work

And if you ask us to do anything

We’ll just tell you we can’t do anything!

Well we can’t pass notes in math class

and we’ve never bought a school lunch

and we’ve never had our homework eaten by the family dog

and we’ve never had a hall pass

and we’ve never owned a locker

and we’ve never had detention after school

Chorus

Well we’ve never been suspended

and we’ve never missed the school bus

and we’ve never got a fat lip from the bully down the hall

and we’ve never seen the school nurse

and we’ve never slapped erasers

and we’ve never had detention after school

Chorus

Well we’ve never changed for P.E.

and we’ve never had a swirlie

and we’ve never had a teacher that we didn’t like at all

and we’ve never had supply lists

and we’ve never answered roll call

and we’ve never had detention after school

Chorus

But we’ve often taken field trips

and we go to school in pj’s

and we often do our work while sitting on our favorite couch

and we finish school by lunchtime

and we find our books on ebay

and we don’t have any homework after school

Chorus

Here are links to the poems that were read.

If You Give a Mom a Muffin

Mother

Raising Boys

Dear Lord, It’s Been a Hectic Day

It was a wonderful day!   I can’t end this without a big THANK YOU to Brooke & Mike and Nancy, Gerald & Kelsey!!