Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Planning a Homeschool Co-op

Home Spun comic strip #228
[Reprinted with permission from Home Spun Juggling.]

Summer is time for planning ahead to the next school year, which makes it a great time to think about starting a homeschool co-op. Would you like to get together with a few other families for semi-regular playtime or field trips? Or do you envision a large organization with several classes for each grade level?

As the Bible says, "Plans fail when there is no counsel, but with abundant advisers they are established." An excellent been-there-done-that adviser is Carolyn Morrison of Guilt-Free Homeschooling. Check out her articles:

Other homeschoolers weigh in with their experiences:
Finally, I offer a few peeks at our local (rural Illinois) homeschool co-op experience:

Don't want to miss a single tip? Subscribe to the Frugal Homeschooling RSS Feed!

Related Posts:

6 comments:

Denise in IL said...

How funny that I wrote about co-ops for this week. Yesterday (after this article came out) our co-op planning committee had a 13 e-mail discussion about an issue that has come up, which we have to decide this week. Today, 16 e-mails so far!

Every year, there is something unexpected that comes up. It's a constant learning adventure for the planners, as well as for the students.

Denise in IL said...

Update: 30 e-mails today, and it's starting to slow down. I think we have come to a good tentative solution...

Denise in IL said...

Yesterday ended up with 36 emails and a good resolution. We had an unexpectedly large number of students sign up for geography class, so we are shifting room assignments and hiring an additional teacher --- and we'll try to find a couple of aides for each teacher, too. Best of all, we didn't have to cancel the under-subscribed science class, either.

In the end, most of our students will be able to get their first-choice classes. If only all problems could be so happily solved!

jugglingpaynes said...

So glad your co-op problems were resolved. Homeschooling co-ops tend to be the ultimate "herding cats" situation for us. I'm surprised we get anything accomplished with our diverse schedules!

Thank you for linking to me!
Peace and Laughter,
Cristina

Happy Campers said...

What neat links you provided!

Three years ago, a small group of us created a CoOp for our then-3 year olds.

This year, we begin Kindergarten curriculums together, & our CoOp is still going strong. Great stuff you linked to!

Carolyn Morrison said...

The links to my co-op group articles are (unfortunately) outdated. These articles (and more related to co-ops) can be found here: http://guiltfreehomeschooling.org/extras/?p=69
Thanks for sharing them!!
--Carolyn Morrison
Guilt-Free Homeschooling