If you are intrigued by the idea of a homeschool co-op but can’t find one that meets your needs or one at all why not consider starting one up yourself? With help from your like minded homeschool mom friends and new friends you can have a thriving and fun group that gives a lot to kids and moms. From socialization (ugh I know) to learning new skills, good conversation, and cultivating new interests  co-ops are a great addition to your homeschool program.

Steps to Starting a Homeschool Co-op

Co-ops don’t have to include classes, they can just be meeting up for field trips and other activities but that is much easier to plan so here is some information that will help you establish a more involved meet-up with classes.

Have a brainstorm session

The first thing you need to do is sit down and brainstorm what kind of homeschool co-op it will be. If you are starting it with other people you want to have an initial brainstorming session with everyone.

Gather ideas and create a mission statement.

Here are some questions to get you started as you flesh out your new co-op…

• Will your co-op be classes only?

• Will everyone rotate teaching?

• Will organized field trips be included?

• Will you have t shirts ?

• Will you charge dues monthly or yearly? How much?

• Who will be in charge of funds?

• What is the best name for your co-op

• How large do you want your co-op to be? Small intimate groups or the more the merrier?

• Are there rules for your group? What are they?

• What day and time will you meet?

Find new members 

Listing on Facebook community sites, church, small local curriculum sales , and good old word of mouth all are great places to reach out to potential new members. Setting up some loose guidelines for joining, maybe for attendance, tardiness, parent volunteers, and other similar expectations will help make sure that you get parents that are truly committed to the group.

Find a location

Scout out community centers, empty Sunday school rooms in churches, and oftentimes libraries have extra rooms that are open for free public use. Perhaps you will meet at someone’s house, or if weather is nice at the local park. If you have to rent a space be sure you figure that into your member dues. As your co-op grows you will find your needs change and you may have to make other arrangements.

Create a schedule

Figure out meet up times, when your classes/events will take place. You will want to do this AFTER you find a location because you will usually need to work around their schedule. If you are having it at someone’s home or a park you will have much more flexibility. By now you should have decide who is leading what class/activity

Organize supplies

Having each child bring basic supplies like paper, glue, scissors, crayons, etc… is a good idea and they also love having their own things to carry  but you will need to invest some of your co-op funds into other supplies for the group. Large plastic bins are a great way to transport and store supplies for classes- art items, books, pencils, science projects, etc. Give each teacher one to keep items organized, include sub plans in the box and have a plan in place for the sub to grab the ready to go box.

Have your first meet up

Keep your expectations a little low, there are going to be some bumps and likely not everything will run perfectly smooth on the first for the first few go rounds. This is a great time to make notes and adjust for what works and what doesn’t.

Enjoy the time with the new group as you and your children begin to cultivate new skills and even more importantly new relationships!

:: Bright Ideas Press offers discounts to homeschool co-ops and will continue to provide resources to help make your teaching easy and fun.

Learn more about how Bright Ideas Press partners with homeschool co-ops. 

We’re always telling our kids not to play with their food at the table. But sometimes playing with food is just the thing to keep everyone entertained! If your kids are anything like most, then you know that telling them not to play with their food just doesn’t work. Here are 10 food-themed activities for kids that the whole family will love!

10 Food Themed Activities for Kids

Dirt Treats

Give your little ones an opportunity to dig in the “dirt” and play with “worms” in this fun activity! Make a mud pie with gummy worms and oreo dirt for an edible treat! This is a great activity for play dates, letting kids make a dessert with friends!

Homemade Rock Candy

Grow your own colorful, pretty, edible rock candy! Kids will love watching their candy slowly grow in size over the next few days, making spectacular crystals they can eat! Let your kids choose the color of their candy using food coloring.

Color Changing Lemonade

Put a fresh twist on fresh lemonade! Watch as the mix in magically changes from blue to purple when it hits the lemonade! This is great for a quick burst of fun and to cool off on a hot summer day!

Homemade Ice Cream

Make your own ice cream at home with this activity! With just a bit of dry ice, you can have fresh soft serve ice cream right in your own kitchen! Experiment with your kids trying different flavors, and make fun sundaes!

Edible Sugar Glass

Make clear, brittle, edible glass! You’ll have a blast when everyone gets to shatter the fresh “glass” and take a bite. This recipe is just about 100% sugar, so you may want to limit everyone’s portions. It’s a super sweet snack that lets your kids break things!

Rubber Egg Experiment

Turn an ordinary egg into a rubbery, soft ball! Once you’re done letting the egg soak, you can bounce it, poke it, examine it, and more. Kids will go nuts over the way the hard shell seemingly disappears, and you can even pop it and look at the inside when you’re done!

Food Groups Sorting

Have fun learning about making healthy choices in this fun food-themed activity! Kids will get a hands-on learning experience with the main food groups and will sort various food items into their appropriate groups. This can help with children who are starting to make their own choices on what to eat make better decisions for their body.

Pepper Stamps

Who says you can’t play with your food? Cutting up peppers or other fruits and veggies makes fun, edible stamps! Let your kids decide how to cut things up to make the most fun stamps, then paint a fun picture for the fridge!

Painting on Ice Cream

What better way to use your homemade ice cream from earlier? Grab some food coloring and some toppings and get painting with your family! See what kinds of fun creations your kids can “paint” using food coloring on their ice cream canvas!

Edible Tree for Animals

Food isn’t just for people after all! Have fun with your kids making all sorts of edible ornaments to hang outside, and watch the wildlife come have a snack too! You’ll love watching and finding out what sort of creatures live near your home!

Everyone loves food, and everyone loves playing. When you bring them together, you’re bound to have a blast!

// Studying The Mystery of History Volume II this year? Remember to add The Mystery of History Volume II Cookbook to your fun! The historical recipes in the cookbook will take you on a culinary journey through the cultures and times of the Early Church and the Middle Ages. There is a recipe for each of the 28 weeks of The Mystery of History, Volume 2. Along with ingredient lists and step-by-step cooking instructions, there are notes about the foods and customs of the period the recipe represents. Includes printable recipe cards and a geographic index! Watch 3d hentai video 3d-porn.biz here best hentai all genres!

:: all photos are used with permission.

When the kids were small, celebrating the end of the homeschool year might mean a pancake celebration or a trip to the local ice cream shop. When they pass the ripe old age of 13, they might not be quite as interested in the “fun” things you enjoyed as a family.

It can be a difficult and surprising transition for the mom of a teen. Where’d that sweet faced child go off to?

Not to worry! Here are ten ways your teens will enjoy celebrating the end of the homeschool year.

10 Ways to Celebrate the End of Homeschool Year with Your Teens

If the idea of planning a big to-do isn’t your thing you can keep it easy-peasy. Any of the following ways can be great fun!

1. Ask them how they’d like to celebrate. Keep in mind that you might get answers of “nothing” “I don’t know”, and “whatever.” However, it’s important to consider their wishes. If you end up with a reluctant celebrant, go ahead and honor that. You can choose a gift card to their favorite fast-food place as a little-something.
2. Plan a teen game night with friends and other homeschoolers. Where there’s food to eat and games to be played, there’s a celebration.
3. Seek out a service opportunity. This can be a great way to change a teen’s focus and maybe even spark a permanent interest in serving. Our family did ESL with displaced refugees and it sparked one daughter’s interest in teaching.
4. Have a formal dinner. Invite grandparents if practical and eat somewhere that doesn’t have a dollar menu. Dress up!
5. Make a scrapbook of memories from the year. Photos, drawings, ticket stubs, and any little momento has a story to tell. You could include a letter written by you sharing your pride over your teen’s year of work.
6. Binge watch a favorite series. I mean, it is a celebration, right? You can visit PluggedIn for family-friendly reviews and age-appropriate movies for teens.
7. Approach your church about hosting an event with other teens. A cake and punch evening with other families in your church can make a special event.
8. Go summer clothes shopping. Give a budget for your teen to manage and let them start their summer searching for new board shorts or flip flops.
9. Gift them a journal for summer writing. There’s nothing like the smell of fresh leather, or having a special place to keep track of the sure-to-be summer adventures.
10. Join a summer book club. Or create a summer book list to and shop for your favorites with a day of bookstore browsing.

Honoring the Work That’s Been Done

Not listed above, but an important part of the end of the year, either as part of the celebrating, or as a way of honoring the year’s work, would be to create ways your teen can evaluate the year. What worked? What didn’t work? What needs to be done next year? This can be done by setting goals with your teen for the next year and looking ahead to college or college-prep.

Take Photos of Your Teen 

Our children grow so quickly, and while snapping pictures of them when they are small is second nature, you tend to not have as many of them as they are teens. Plan to have a professional photo taken at the end of each year. While this is normally done at the beginning of the school year in the public schools, why not do it when your schedule is less busy?

However you might choose to end your year-celebration or reflection, we can all agree—we’ve earned our summer break!

Are you teaching your kids map skills? Reading a map is a life skill that will serve them well in many areas of life. Here are some ways to teach map skills by interweaving them into your life.

One of my fondest childhood memories is sitting on my grandpa’s lap looking at his atlas of the United States. Using his finger, he would retrace the routes he and my grandma took on various trip across the country. He would stop at certain points to tell me about interesting things they saw or people they met.

Each time I went to see him, he would take me on another atlas trip either out west or down south. We took some of those trips over and over, but I never got bored. We traveled the country and never left his chair. I knew these routes and places intimately even though I had never been there. Those experiences made me want to travel and taught me many things. I learned geography, culture, history, and map skills.

For The Love Of Maps

Those atlas trips with my grandpa fueled my love for maps. When I was young, I would often trace make-believe trips of my own imagining what I would see or do along the way. When my family would take vacations, I would always be in the backseat with a map or atlas in hand. As we drove, I would track our trip on my map. I would take note of each town’s name and what interesting features were nearby, like forests, parks, or historic sites. My parents would often ask me to find an alternate route or how far we were from certain points and towns.

I think it’s that love of maps and navigation that makes me cringe when someone I know gets lost using their GPS. Seriously. Just because your GPS gives you directions doesn’t mean they are the best or most accurate. I am not opposed to GPS and use Google Maps all the time to find ice rinks during travel hockey season. However, I do take a peek at the route in full map view to make sure it makes sense first. I’ve had too many friends make the 30 minute trip in 60 because the GPS rerouted them, and they couldn’t figure out where they were to correct the situation. Here’s a tip: Learn to use a map, people. (But, I digress…)

Teaching Map Skills Organically

Reading and using maps is a life skill that is dying with the invention of GPS navigation and Google Maps. That is a shame. Maps not only help you not get lost, they help you learn spatial reasoning. Being able to realize the distance between places and where things are in the world in relationship to others, is a crucial skill in understanding our place in the world.

When we started homeschooling, my daughter’s first lesson was about maps. I knew that map skills would help her in almost all of her subjects. Just knowing where places are in relationship to each other helps us understand more as we learn. For instance, knowing the distance across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to North America helps us understand why it was such a dangerous voyage for explorers and the first settlers.

My daughter and I looked at all types of maps from simple maps with just streets and symbols to atlases and travel road maps to early mariner maps to topographical maps. I sat with her on the sofa and traced routes of trips I had taken in the past. We chatted about places, people, animals, and funny stories. I tried to make the map come alive for her just like my grandpa had done for me.

As we looked at the maps, I taught my daughter how to use the legend of the map and what scale meant. We talked about how far some trips looked on some maps, yet looked closer on others. In no time, she was tracing routes from one point to another and pointing out features and places along the way.

The wrap up map skills activity was creating a map of our small neighborhood. My daughter rode her bike up and down the streets counting houses and writing down street names. We used the odometer in the car to figure out distances. My daughter was so proud of the finished product that included houses, the creek that runs through the neighborhood, the woods behind the neighborhood, and street names.

Since then, we have created many other map projects like:

• Treasure maps
• History maps
• Vacation travel routes
• Salt maps
• Habitat maps

Making Maps Part Of Life

After that initial lesson, we wove maps into everything from history to geography to science to a trip to grandma’s house. We hung a world map and a United States map on my son’s wall. There were atlases and maps in the book basket. Whenever we read about a new place, we found it on one of our maps. When we took a field trip, we mapped out a route before we left and followed along on the map on our way. Maps were just part of life.

My children are teens now and you can still find maps in the glove box of our car. Although we do use Google Maps, we do break out the paper map from time to time to get the big picture or just to be sure. When we plan a travel hockey trip or vacation out of state, the kids know that there will be maps of each state along the way and we will use those maps. I love that they aren’t afraid of maps and when I ask them to find a place or give me directions, they will know how. They have map skills. My kids will not get lost!

Tools For Teaching Map Skills

I am still a sucker for a good map. If I had my way, I would collect old maps, frame them, and hang them on every wall. Do you use maps in your homeschool? Is map reading a life skill you are teaching your children? Have you checked out these resources from Bright Ideas Press that will make teaching map skills fun and easy?

WonderMaps is an online map program that includes over 300 different map types. (WonderMap tutorial video)

• 75 maps of the world
• 60+ maps of the USA
• 150+ historical maps, including 30 biblical maps
• The complete map sets from The Mystery of History vols. I–IV and All American History vols. I & II

Bright Ideas Press offers atlases covering different regions and topics.

• The Student Bible Atlas
• Then And Now Bible Atlas
• History Of The World Atlas 
• Atlas Of World Geography
• Children’s Illustrated World Atlas