How To Teach A Homeschooling Co-op Class

There are so many benefits of joining a homeschooling co-op. Are you hesitant to join because you aren’t sure what you can offer?

Do you think about joining a homeschooling co-op, but you aren’t sure how you can contribute? Are you fresh out of ideas for a co-op class? There is good news! You can easily create a class that you will love to teach and will be fun for kids too.

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And if you are hesitating because you don’t feel like you have anything to give. Let me tell you mom, you do. Share your knowledge and gifts. You have something to contribute. You can teach homeschool group.

Joining a Homeschooling Co-op

Joining a homeschooling co-op offers great social opportunities for kids and moms alike. It is a great way to add homeschool activities that don’t involve curriculum too. There are two types of co-ops that I’ve participated in: parents volunteer to run and teach homeschool co op; or, for a higher cost, a few parents teach and you can drop the kids off. Sometimes the second style is the best choice because, let’s face it, sometimes you just need a break. But if you are part of a parent-led co-op and you’ve thought about teaching a class, this is a step-by-step guide, from start to finish, on how to do it.

We’ve been part of our homeschooling co-op for 5 years now, and we all enjoy it. The kids made friends and so did I. I’ve been teaching an art class for about 3 years now. Other parents, who helped in the class, were inspired by this format and applied it to a class they wanted to teach. So even though I will give you the specific format for my art class, this can easily be applied to other classes.

You can find a list of homeschooling co-op groups here.

Choose the Topic for Your Homeschooling Co-op Class

The first thing you need to do is decide what homeschool group class you want to teach. I am firm believer in teaching something that interests you. There are a few reasons for this, you need to be interested in what you are teaching. Co-op classes should be fun and interesting extra-curricular classes. So the sky is the limit on what you teach.

Pick a topic that you find interesting. You will be excited about teaching it and your excitement will come through to the kids.

I teach an art history class. Two of my favorite things are art and history, so this is a perfect fit for me. I am excited about teaching it, I enjoy reading up on it, and it is fun to prep for it during the week. If you aren’t excited about your topic it will come through in your prep and teaching. Remember, have fun with your class.

Format for the Class

Here is the format to teach homeschool coop class. I use this for every class, and I just change the artist I teach. I actually change up the artists that I teach every semester, because I want to learn something new too. You can download the sample schedule.

The class time is 50 minutes. For the first 20-25 minutes we do the history side, which includes reviewing the artists already taught and introducing the new artist. Then I read the artist’s story. I typically use the Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists by Mike Venezia (he also has books on composers, inventors, and presidents). These are great books for kids. They are well written and fun. I have also written my own story if there is an artist I want to teach, but I can’t find a kid-friendly book.

While I am reading the story, I have the kids cut out the artwork that we will take a closer look at. I add a lot of activities in the lapbooks so the kids have something to do while I am reading, and if we happen to encounter any downtime there are extra activities. They can color or cut, while I am reading. I find that kids who can occupy their hands are better listeners.

After the story is finished, there are usually 5 famous paintings that we take a closer look at. These are printed on paper, like flashcards, we talk about the name of the painting and any other significant facts. Like, Monet painted his famous water lily garden hundreds of times.

While we are talking about the paintings, the kids glue the artwork into their flipbooks, which will then be glued into their lapbooks.

Next, we put the lapbooks away and transition to the art project. Since it is an art class we use a number of mediums. So whether we paint, use watercolor pencils, soft pastels, oil pastels, watercolors, or clay, they spend the remainder of class making their amazing creations. Sometimes the instruction is to just create some magic, other times I will have them copy one of the artist’s works. It is always great when parents recognize the artist we’ve studied based on the kids’ art.

Finally, the kids clean up.

Ideas for Your Homeschooling Co-op Class

If art isn’t your forte, here are some other ideas that would work with this same format.

STEM Tales: Choose a fairy tale, like the 3 Little Pigs, read the story and then work on a project. The project would be building a house out of different materials, and then testing if it can withstand the big bad wolf (use a hairdryer to try and blow the house down).

For all the projects, you can use the engineering design process for the STEM part of STEM Tales. You can simplify the steps in the engineering design process for the project.

Lego Building: You can use a book like The Lego Ideas Book for project ideas. You can choose a project from the book and then give a little history about it. Then let the kids build. Or you can split the class up a bit differently. Let the kids free build for the first 10 minutes. Transition to your topic, and then have the kids build the project.

Composers: Since Mike Venezia also have books on this topic, you can easily teach a class on great composers. You can substitute music clips for the artwork flashcards and create a lapbook for the composers.

Inventors: Get to know the greatest inventors. Instead of an art project, you can substitute it for a science project.

Conclusion

I hope you are able to banish any hesitation and let the ideas flow. You can teach a homeschooling co-op class that is fun and exciting to teach. Let me know the class you’ve decided to teach!