This last Tuesday, we had our first homeschool co-op gathering at our church. The Children’s Ministry Director has graciously agreed to let us use one of the rooms temporarily for our growing group. Really, it’s 3 rooms in one…each room has a sliding divider wall which we left open to create one large room. It was really nice to have the space. Thank you Liann!!!!
I (Megan) hosted this week and decided to center our morning around Spring Time. I was a little nervous as to how the morning would go because I was setting up in a room absent of any toys. Whenever we’ve held Tuesday School in someone’s home, there are always so many "extra" things for the kids to do during "free-play time". But this also means that there is always a large mess to clean up as well. As it turned out, I seriously underestimated the imagination and energy of the kids in our group. For the first 15 minutes or so, they all ran laps as they laughed and chased each other around some long tables that were set up in the room. They had a blast doing this. I was amazed….and thrilled! So, having the extra space all contained in one room without the distraction of toys and things actually worked out really well.
Here are some photos:
Munchkins sitting on gym mats at the end of the room, resting after running laps.
Circle Time….we sang a song and then talked about what changes take place in the Spring and what everyone likes to do at this time of year. The kids all agreed that the weather is a bit wacky in March. We see a bit of everything…wind, rain, sun, cold and warmer temps. We also talked about flowers blooming, trees are starting to grow leaves, grass is growing, we can grow gardens, and play more outside. Then we learned how caterpillars turn in to butterflies, birds build nests and lay eggs that hatch into baby birds and this is when we start to see and hear frogs as well. As we talked about these things, I taught the kids some of the signs for words associated with Spring. And we also played a memorization game. I brought along a few items associated with Spring (gardening gloves, small shovel, sun glasses, etc.) and then removed one at a time while they closed their eyes. Once they opened their eyes, they had to guess which item was removed. They all did a great job!!!
We made caterpillars next. I had the kids paint small rocks. They didn’t dry in time for us to hot glue them together, so I took them home and will glue them and bring them next week for the kids.
Next the kids created flowers with different colored wooden shapes. They did great with this.
And then we had a "Windy" Balloon activity. The object was to use straws to blow balloons across the floor like the wind.
What cuties!!
O in his cool sunglasses
Baby N and mom, Kathy
A, tired after running laps.