Monday co-op

I want to start this post with some gratitude for the awesome mamas in the homeschool co-op that we are a part of. They are such good friends, such kind women, doing such a good job of raising their kids.

Yesterday we were two hours late to co-op because my tire randomly went flat on the interstate. I called to let everyone know that we would be very late, and they waited on us to start Circle. My heart is so full of gratitude for that simple act. Clover was upset that we were probably going to miss our class, and she felt so loved when we got there and everyone had waited. It was a very sweet class, too! Carrie put a lot of thought into it, and all of the kids enjoyed it!

We lit the candle and sang our Circle song. We said our Spring verse together (more or less), and Carrie introduced the class topic: trees. The kids all tried to think of things that came from trees. They came up with lots of different fruits, paper, and toys! We passed some tree products around the circle: a wooden bowl, some toilet paper, a wooden pen, an apple, and a wooden pig. We talked about other "tree gifts": oxygen, absorption of pollutants from the air, and shade.





At this point, Nova began to get agitated. He has a pretty hard time being still and quiet for more than about five minutes. So, I let him experiment with some amateur photography while we listened to _The Giving Tree_ by Shel Silverstein. Atleast he stayed on topic for the most part. His pictures were all of trees or people listening to a story about trees. haha!!



We played some games and sang some tree songs. Everyone practiced the yoga pose called "tree".


Nova and Lela watched as the big kids played tree tag. It was really hard to get a good picture of that. They all run like gazelles!!


After tree tag, Carrie read a tree story to the kids while they laid on blankets and looked at the trees. They had a very nice view, and got very relaxed.


We decided to skip the craft (a tree collage) in favor of water play! All of the kids were so wound up about getting into the lake! They splashed and played for about an hour before it was time to go home. Nova handed me about fifty seashells. We brought some of them home, and put them in the basket on our nature table.