We belong to a co-op with other homeschoolers where we meet for structured school once a week. I feel strange calling it a homeschool co-op because it is not homeschool at all; it is just people who homeschool Monday through Thursday getting together for a privately-organized school group on Fridays. So since it is not homeschool, there are pros and cons. I guess it's a nice balance to get the advantages of homeschool and then some advantages of a group setting thrown in there too. The women I work with in the preschool class are way nice, friendly, caring women. It's refreshing to be around them.
Unfortunately, it can get to be a long day for Elisabeth (it is the length of a typical school day) and for a pregnant mama too, who just wants to go hide somewhere to lie down! We have been taking advantage of the flexibility and leaving at lunch-time when we need to; but Rychen is involved in a drama class that meets at the end of the day so he usually has to go back. After the play is over with soon, we will probably just go 8:45 - 12:30.
Besides drama, Rychen is doing Ancient History from The Story of the World; Life Science; Geography; and Art. (He is a pretty academically talented kid so its a little amusing to see him as the underdog in art class!!) Since I am not in his class most of the time, I don't actually know much about what he is learning--and to be honest that is one of the disadvantages of school, for me. The other disadvantages are wasted time due to lots of kids; less flexibility with schedules (for instance if you need a snack when it's not snack time, etc.); and just generally doing things other people's way, without having a say in my child's educational experience (for instance--and this is really stupid, I admit--his Geography teacher is having them learn a 5th ocean, the "Antarctic Ocean," which frankly did not exist when I was in school. I promise I do have some more substantial examples too).
I have been spending my time mostly with the preschool group and then in Rychen's Geography class if we stay after lunch. Geography is his favorite subject so we have already been doing a lot of it at home anyway, and I really love this classical model of learning maps. We practice maps at home every day!
Right now I am leading a fund-raiser for the group which is my first responsibility. I have to admit, I feel bored and useless when not put in charge of something. I was let down that they didn't ask me to teach, but on the other hand it is probably a good thing considering how stressed out I have been!
Elisabeth has been doing the usual preschool stuff. She is still one of the younger ones and doesn't always participate, and can't yet socialize with the others. Especially after a couple hours, she tends to become bored and just wanting to be with me. I'm not going to pretend to be excited about being in the preschool class, sorry. I am just not a perky singing, rhyming, crafting preschool kind of mom. (I think I would be much better suited for the teenagers!)
Anyway we wanted to try this out, to get more involved with other families and make friends. I do really appreciate that it's a family affair with parents present and good Christian values. It's an interesting experiment (and I do wonder what the leaders actually think of it now, seeing that they have put way more effort into the organization than they expected!) and we'll see if we keep it up.
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