A Huge Blessing - Our Homeschool Co-op

It is always amazing to me how the Lord tends to know what I need, even better than I do myself. Around the middle of last year I was feeling pretty overwhelmed with homeschooling and needed some support.  I had great friends who were supportive, but I really needed someone to talk to that understood the unique situations to homeschooling.  I ended up pouring my heart out in prayer one night, asking the Lord to help me find someone that understood, and could be supportive.  Two days later in church, out of the blue, I had a lady come up to me and say, "I hear that you're homeschooling? I homeschooled all of my children for years." 

I had never had such a direct, fast answer to a prayer. I was so emotional.  We talked for a bit, and she gave me some great resources and ideas to find some connections with other homeschoolers. I soon joined some online support networks, and it wasn't long until a mom posted that she was soon moving to Provo, starting her homeschool journey, and was looking for some other moms to meet.  She lived right in my neighborhood. We connected, and the Lord has opened up doors and opportunities since that have been unbelievable.  

I slowly started to get to know this mom better, who introduced me to some of her friends. By the end of the summer three of us had decided we needed to form our own co-op.  We were led to two other amazing mothers and before we know it we had it all set up, planned and having been enjoying the ride ever since.

One day a week we get together. Here is a rough look at our schedule. Although we don't follow it exactly we still keep the same structure.

10:30: Meet and get started - Devotional together
11:00 - 12:00: First Class
12:00-12:30: Lunch
12:30 - 1:30 Second Class or clubs
1:30 - break up: Free time, play, go to the park if good weather, sit around chat with the other moms.

It eventually breaks up when we feel we can pull ourselves away from each other in time to make it home to throw dinner in. We started out with 5 families and right now are currently at 4. We take turns teaching and have the kids divided up into 2-3 groups depending on the subject. We have our littles class which is preschool - kindergarten ages, and then our other group is children 7-11. We have a nice variety of ages, a good mix of boys and girls.

Here the little class is trying sushi and chopsticks for the first time based on their lesson about Ping from the FIAR (Five in a Row) curriculum which we decided to do for this semester.  We've had history classes looking through cultural cases from the BYU Museum of People and Cultures. It's a large trunk filled with artifacts, activities, and information from various cultures and civilizations.  They are really awesome. Our only regret was not extending each culture out for a couple of weeks so we could do the activities, as well as go through all the great artifacts from the culture.

We've had science classes, creative writing class, history on famous Americans, and art classes. This photo was our day of shooting off our volcanoes we created for science.  Right now we are trying to incorporate some more club type of classes that the children can choose from or help teach. Things like cooking, legos, crochet, board games, outdoor games, dancing, balloon tying, cake decorating, etc.

This experience has been so amazing for me.  Not only have my children benefited from knowing and being around other families that have chosen to homeschool. But they are making strong friendships with both the other moms and children. They are learning, having lots of fun, and being built up by some amazing families. It has been great to see my kids do work and write for these other moms when it is a subject that they would otherwise fight with me about.

I personally have gotten so much from the co-op. It has truly been what I have needed. Friends that I can talk to about the various aspects of homeschooling and life. I feel like my own education has grown as I've learned from the skills and talents that these ladies have. These moms are doing things for the right reasons, and are so focused on following the Lord's will for their kids, that it's inspiring.  They have impacted me in ways that I won't be able to ever forget them, nor will I be the same person I was before I had known them.

I love it when Thursdays roll around.  I get to leave all my cares, worries and other obligations behind, and I can just go relax for the day teaching these great kids, visiting and sharing with the other moms and coming home rejuvenated to go for another week.

Why the Absence

I can't believe it. I'm actually writing a blog post.

I didn't mean to just jump ship and go almost 4 months without a single post. Especially since I really want to keep this blog as a personal and family history.

But life happens. It tends to accelerate sometimes and you're not sure how to slow it down.  You can't figure out how to eliminate any more things from your life, or how you can add one more thing. Somehow it happens.  Right after my last blog post I was called to be the Relief Society president for our ward. (For those of you that are not LDS, that just means that I am now the spiritual leader for the female organization  in our church congregation and watching over the individual women in my ward.)

It has taken me a few months to get my bearings. It was NOT in my radar, nor my plan, but it is amazing how the Lord can prepare you slowly and get you to the point he needs you at very quickly. From some difficult weeks prior to this calling, I learned a lot.  I grew a lot. I went from completely incapable and wanting a break from service to being ready and willing when the call came (literally huge changes within days). The Lord prepped me. When I hung up the phone, knowing I was going in for an interview with the Bishop, I knew I would be extended this calling. I had peace and knew that despite the last very difficult month, and being completely overwhelmed with life, I would be ok, he would support me and I would be able to do this.  It has been amazing to see the enabling power of the atonement take an effect so quickly and so powerfully in my life than in these last 4 months. I have SOOO much to learn, and so many ways to grow. But I have learned in the last few months that he can enable me to do anything... and so I look forward to seeing the growth and learning opportunities I will experience, and how I will be able to fulfill all of my obligations with his help.

So my kids have been getting used to mom being gone more for Relief Society business.  We are getting better at scheduling between both Beau and I's callings. We are learning how to fit and do school within the early part of the day so that I have time to meet my other obligations. We're learning how to have the kids serve with us. We're learning how to make the most of those nights, weekends or days when we don't have anything going on and spend quality time together as a family.

We enjoyed the wonderful holidays with extended family and our own family. We enjoyed dad having some time off from work. We've been excited to see Beau's company grow and get clients. We've enjoyed all the snow that has been dumping. We've also survived 2 solid weeks of major sickness, and are slowly recovering right now. I am so done with sickness. I did get a few new products created somewhere in my few moments of spare time, so here are a  few layouts about what we've been up to with all this snow.

We made snowman pictures one day for some holiday decor in our house. We talked about the different angles or perspectives you can, and had them try drawing their snowman in 3 different perspectives. I always love how the artwork turns out. I've been lucky to be teaching art to the kids in our homeschool co-op. It has been fun to see everyone's individual style emerge and how much joy they get out of creating something.