CO-OP: September 2025
A few of our homeschool co-op friends!
After considering doing a post for each weekly co-op session, I decided to instead do a round-up of our co-op activities each month. The first co-op post from September is here, but from here forward it will be a monthly summary. Each month we have two “classroom” days, a nature day, and a field trip. This has been a wonderful structure that allows some teacher directed learning, some child-led learning and also exploration and nature play. We’ve been involved with our co-op since its origin two years ago, and it’s been such a supportive space! We share guidance and tips, chat about day to day wins & challenges, and reduce the load of homeschooling for each-other. If you are considering homeschool, I highly recommend finding a co-op to help you on your way!
SERVICE DAY
An important value to all of our families is teaching the kids about how to take care of our community, so one of our co-op moms planned a meaningful service day for the kids that demonstrated different ways we can be helpful. To start, they decorated superhero helper capes and they loved wearing them throughout the day! We then rotated through a variety of stations (listed below), and I really appreciated how all of the acts of service were truly helpful and practical!
making treats for dogs at a local shelter: the kids learned about measurements and participated in good sensory work as they shaped the treats. The recipe (pictured above) was a great kid friendly simple one! We also rolled the treats in oats to reduce stickiness before placing them in bags.
knotting a blanket for someone without a home: after a read-aloud of the book “I See You”, we knotted a cozy blanket to help somebody stay warm and made cards to send some cheer along too!
picking up trash around the church property: we are so grateful to the church that allows us to use this space for our co-op for free, and as a way to demonstrate our gratitude the kids donned gloves and scouted various areas outside to see how much trash they could collect. Some of the kids were appalled (and even a bit furious) that people could just throw trash around like that!
filling a care box for someone in military service: as a way to show respect and gratitude for those serving our country away from the comforts of home & family, we packed a box full of candy to send in a care package. We also read the book Thank You For Your Service: A Kid’s Book Honoring Our Military Leaders
In summary, it was a really heartfelt day and so fun to see the kids take on their superhero personas with real life service!
ART PLAY & SHAPES DAY
I had a ton of fun planning and leading this day full of art inspiration from featured artists! As a kid I admittedly always thought art was a bit boring, but the older I get the more I realize what fascinating lives many artists had, and I was excited to share some gorgeous masterpieces and fun facts with the kids. Above, you can see some pictures from our day, and below there are more details about our activities.
Welcome Activities: as the kids arrived, they worked on a collaborative poster and played with playdough and mini cookie cutters in a variety of shapes
Circle Time: We read a book about Matisse called “The King Of Color,” and I pulled shapes out of a jar to see how many they could name. I tried not to get too tricky with it, but there are some wild shape names!! We also said many of the shape names in Spanish too, since a couple families in our group speak Spanish and a number of us are trying to teach it to our kids. I also showed the kids a few masterpieces from our featured artists and we talked about the shapes we could see in the artwork.
We then moved into our activity stations, with the goal of letting the kids explore the ones that interested them most:
play with color like Matisse: the kids cut shapes out of construction paper in a Matisse inspired way to make bookmarks (and one even made a little masterpiece book!). A fun fact about Matisse is that he started cutting his paper masterpieces after he received a cancer diagnosis & operation that weakened him to the point that doctors thought he wouldn’t ever be able to create art again.
make art with circles like Kandinsky: the kids used hole punches of various sizes, construction paper and paint to make Kandinsky inspired art.
take a line for a walk like Paul Klee: the kids were encouraged to use a pencil crayon to make squares and rectangles and then color some of them in.
stamp making station: the kids cut simple shapes out of craft foam and hot glued them to wooden Jenga blocks so the kids could have custom made stamps! At home I’ve enjoyed making these so that I can make my own wrapping paper with recycled kraft paper.
a book corner & free play area: in this area there were a number of books featuring the artists, as well as shapes play puzzles and magnets. Some great books were: The Shape of the World by K.L. Going // The Noisy Paint Box by Barb Rosenstock // The Iridescence of Birds by Patricia MacLachlan // The King of Color by Laurence Anholt
Outside Activities: We don’t always go outside on our classroom days, but I thought it’d be fun to have some gross motor play since many of the other activities were crafty and fine motor focused. The kids all drew shapes in chalk as I announced them and then we played a game where they ran to find the shapes as I called them out (I had drawn some extra big shapes too to make it more fun!).
NOTES
Willow’s thoughts: “I liked the service day because I liked making a superhero cape, and I loved hearing that book [I See You] and the blanket station. I didn’t like the dog treats that much because I didn’t want to get my hands too dirty. And I loved collecting trash!”
The co-op also had two days were weren’t able to attend: a nature center day, as well as a day at a local play farm.
