Planning your own Homeschool Elementary Science Co-op
Science labs are one of the most neglected areas in homeschooling. Fortunately, with a little planning this can be overcome by starting your own homeschool science co-op!
How to Start your own Homeschool Elementary Science Co-op
You will need:
- a group of 2-3 families to start. Obviously the number of children involved will have some bearing on the number of families to include
- a home to meet in or a plan to rotate homes
- a calendar to schedule your meetings every two weeks for approximately 2 hours at a time
- a mutally agreeable curriculum
I’m sure you could do this with other science curriculum. But, since I have the most experience with Apologia, I will be using that as my example.
Apologia offers some great hands-on, Charlotte Mason approached, Creation based sciences geared for homeschool use that are easily doable in a co-op setting.
For the homeschool elementary aged crowd, choose from Astronomy, Botany, Flying Creatures, Swimming Creatures, Land Animals, Physics/Chemistry or Anatomy.
Once you’ve decided on which book to do and where to meet, it’s time to consider the actual labs. You have one of two choices. You can either do a sign up sheet for needed items between families OR save yourself time and purchase a pre-made kit. Rainbow Resources is one retailer that sells these kits.
Now you are ready to get started!
Over the course of the next two weeks, have your child read the chapter, or in the case of younger children, read to them and work through the journaling questions and activities.
Another nice option is to use Apologia’s notebooks for journaling, drawing, review, copywork and lab sheets in conjuction with the text. Again, this isn’t necessary, but it is nice. This notebook also makes a very nice portfolio for those families that do an end of the school year review to send to their respective school district.
When you come together as a group for the labs, appoint one Mom to take the lead. Spend a few minutes orally reviewing the chapter. Next, either tackle the mini-book from the notebook or the experiment(s). This is easier than it sounds. All the steps involved with the labs are clearly written and easily executed. When you do the labs, allow enough time (and help) for everyone to fill out their lab sheet. This helps with skills the student will definitely need when they get to middle and high school.
Co-oping your science is a great way to ensure you don’t skip those experiments, loose track and focus in your homeschool…and it’s just plain FUN!
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