Sunday, November 28, 2021

Learning in Community :: Fall 2021

When I first began homeschooling, there were no Charlotte Mason groups in my area, so I decided to start one! I began with a nature club, and for the past ten years, we have been meeting almost every Friday for a walk/hike/meet-up in a wild space of some kind, with time for exploration, nature journaling, and play. A couple years later, we added on a monthly-ish Charlotte Mason study group for those interested. Together we have gone through Mason's volumes and many Parents' Review articles. Over the years, members have come and gone -- some have made different schooling choices, some have moved here and then moved away, and new moms contact me all the time. But the core group of current members are now dear friends. I am really grateful to be home educating alongside them.


This year, we decided to add in a co-op -- it seemed like the right time for many reasons. My kids are older and can really benefit from learning with peers, my husband works from home and is able to watch my littles, and post-Covid, I have seen the real value of community, despite the energy it can take.

But the biggest push for me was that all of us are now using the CMEC. Not only does the CMEC offer a lot of support for community learning, but also we are all using the same programs this year, and we all have access to the same resources. This has made planning for cooperative learning super simple!

We decided to start small: every other Friday from 9-noon, instead of nature club, we would meet for our co-op. We committed to seven sessions for Fall Term (late August to mid-November). Currently we are on a break for Winter Term, and then we will have another seven sessions for Spring Term (late January to early April).

We have six families, including about twenty school-aged kids plus littles. We have a mix of subjects: some we do all together, and some we split into two groups for (Form 1 and Kinderleben go with one instructor, and Forms 2-5 go with another instructor). There are also a couple moms in charge of managing Littleleben (aka, the babies and toddlers!) while the students are working.

Here was our schedule for this fall:

On the off weeks, families did these same subjects on their own and we met for our regular nature outing on Friday morning. The only lesson that really required families to stay on track at home was Plutarch, since we only covered every other lesson together and we didn't want students to get behind or be confused during class. The rest were fairly flexible, and meeting only every other week allowed us a bit of freedom for each family to have their own school schedule. We used Slack, our communication platform, to share any necessary notes for parents.

Due to Covid restrictions, we met outside all term. Thanks to our nice weather here in California, that worked just fine. We were able to find a great spot at a local community park with plenty of shade, picnic tables, privacy, and not too many distractions. :)

During the optional sharing time at the end for the older kids, we chose a different category each week -- for example, one week they brought their current handicrafts, another they brought notebooks, another they brought board games to play together. On the last week, we had a "book club" discussion of the historical fiction assigned this term, Johnny Tremain.

Our seventh and final meeting was a fall celebration. The students performed their songs and folk dances, recited poems, played singing games, and showcased final projects for Plutarch and fairy tales. We finished with a potluck lunch and plenty of time to play.

In the spring, we are intentionally taking on a few different subjects so we have a chance to experience a variety of lessons in community. We have a meeting coming up this month to finalize our spring plans!

Our co-op went so smoothly this fall, partly thanks to the CMEC resources (it helped to have that flexible guidance to structure our studies, and we learned so much from Amy's experience at The Mason Academy that she shares through the Community Learning Support Group) and partly thanks to the cheerful willingness of the families involved. Everyone was eager to contribute and committed to understanding the methodology well. Plus we have a pretty wonderful group of kids!

Are you part of a co-op? What are your favorite subjects to do together? We are currently planning Shakespeare, scouting, drill, historical picture books, and a few more fun additions for next term's studies.

7 comments:

  1. That sounds so fun! I've tried getting some sort of coop or even just nature play group together for years but no luck. It's literally just me, my husband (working from home so he can occasionally listen to narrations or make lunch while I work with the kids) and my kids 24/7 and we see my parents on the weekends and people at church on Sundays for an hour. It gets very lonely. All the library activities we used to go to are cancelled because of coronavirus, too...

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    1. Hi Jessica! That sounds so hard. I actually relied quite a bit on virtual community for years when I had young children -- it filled a need and I am grateful for the online groups I was a part of that kept me sane. But there is something about in-person gathering that feels different and essential! Our nature club was really the beginning of all the relationships with homeschool families we have today. I wonder whether you could try again to arrange one and get the word out in new ways. I think there are people out there hungry for community now more than ever and perhaps you would have better luck. I also have always prayed (and continue to do so) for friends for myself and my children. That prayer was answered in different ways at different times -- sometimes God had me draw closer to my husband, which was a blessing looking back. But I think He also has arranged our current situation and I am grateful for that too.

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  2. Your co-op sounds quite wonderful, Celeste, and what a beautiful outdoor setting you all could enjoy. Here (in Ontario) our small-town co-op was finally revived this year, after taking all of 2020 and 2021 off...I was so happy to be back with all the familiar faces. At our (non-CM) co-op each mom teaches a different extracurricular subject, and I taught a group of teenagers how to braid rugs. It was so nice to have a break from the isolation, but sadly, our co-op was cancelled after only a few sessions after one family tested positive for you-know-what. This thing seems to drain all the niceness out of the world. :(

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    1. That's so frustrating, Laura Jeanne! :/ Hopefully the new year can bring a fresh start to your group.

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  3. Celeste, we are beginning a co-op using CMEC materials this fall. We are using your schedule as nice framework for our meetings. I am going to lead the Form 1 group for fairy tales/narrations. Would you be willing to share with me what books you used and how you worked the narration part (oral, drawn, etc.) You mentioned they "showcased final projects" for fairy tales. I'd love to hear more about what those projects were! Thank you!

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    1. Hi Jaime! We chose to use Howard Pyle's The Wonder Clock for our fairy tales since some of the Form 1 students had already done Blue Fairy Book, Grimm, and Andersen (as scheduled on the programs). This allowed moms to do whichever tales they wanted at home without being worried about whether they were going to overlap with the co-op plan. But if you had all moms who had not done Blue Fairy Book yet, I think that would be a great choice too. The Form 1 teacher had students vary their narrations -- some weeks, they narrated orally, some they acted out the story, some they painted or drew. The kids really liked the variety and it kept things fresh week by week. Their final project was to paint a scene from one of the tales. They were excited to see which scene their friends had chosen! Very simple. I hope you have a great beginning to your co-op! We are in the process of making our final plans for fall too. :)

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    2. Celeste - that is perfect! Thank you for the detailed description and yet, so simple. Love it! God bless!

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