Looking for fun Back to School Themes to use in your classroom? Check out these fun, play-based preschool activities for the first few weeks of school. Lots of math, literacy, patterns, tracing and more hands-on fun.

Looking for preschool worksheets and printables for your little one? Here are tons of free - and fun! - perfect for back to school or homeschool planning

This BINGO style game will help your kiddos learn colors and shapes. There are 8 different game boards. I always design my games with my Aunt in mind. She has 6 kiddos. Print as many as you would like. A set of draw cards are included. The Link Shape BINGO Be sure to check out my other FREE printables. More Shape oriented printables are coming soon. Check back soon! Let me know what you think. Are these useful/helpful? What else would you like to see available? Enjoy! Products I use frequently!

Chronicles of Momia Free Homeschool Curriculum, especially for Homeschool Co-ops. Great for use with Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade . Everything included!

Need inspiration for hosting poetry teatime with your homeschool group? I've got a year of homeschool co-op poetry teatime themes waiting for you here!

Co-op kids with their "Guts" t-shirts Cow eyeballs to dissect! Hearts to walk through! DNA to extract from kiwi! Here are s...

Scroll through our ultimate list of homeschool co-op class ideas and I promise you'll find what you're looking for and more!

Having recently moved to Texas, I did a little research about the preschools in my area and didn't really feel that there were a lot of options for my 3-year old in my budget. When talking to a friend at my church I suggested doing a preschool cooperative and she was on board. As I talked to other moms in our church and neighborhoods, we found lots of interest. I am loving it and so are my boys! Here's how it has worked for us!  FIRST: Find other kiddos and Mom's that are interested We have 7 kids and 6 moms (since I contribute two kids to the mix- not counting the baby...;)) SECOND: Establish a schedule. We do Tuesdays & Thursdays 8:30-11:00. We follow the local school district calendar. We planned September thru December up front. There are a variety of curriculum that you can use, i.e. Joy School, etc. If you do a search for "home preschool curriculum" you can find an infinite selection of choices. For our group, we decided to assign each week a letter with a coordinating theme and then the teachers can adjust accordingly. We each do follow the same daily schedule, which allows for the expectations for the kids and teachers to be uniform... Here is how we have our daily schedule set up: THIRD: Establish Expectations for teachers and children- it will help bring consistency across the board. Here is an example of what we have set up... FOURTH: Make a Go-to Box (link here) FIFTH: Plan your week and HAVE FUN! The kids can feel when you are tense, so try to enjoy. More tips and fun lesson ideas to come!!

science experiments for kids

This is part 1 of a 7 part hands-on unit study on anatomy of the human body. Create edible models of human cells and DNA, look at cheek cells under a microscope, and more! These lessons are geared toward 4th-5th grade level children and their siblings. They were created by another creative mom for our weekly homeschool co-op. We meet each week for 2 1/2 hours and have 33 children between the ages of 1-13. Use these fun lessons with your classroom, family, after school program, or co-op!

Scroll through our ultimate list of homeschool co-op class ideas and I promise you'll find what you're looking for and more!

It was my turn to organize the project/lab for our co-op of Apologia’s Human Anatomy and Physiology. We just finished Chapter 4 on the digestive system where the suggested project was to make a digestive themed amusement park. That seemed a little more “arts & crafts” than science to me so I went in search of something better—AND FOUND IT! I found my inspiration from two websites: O2 learn has a great video of the process, but no materials list (you’ll want to watch it for her great British accent anyway); Squidoo has a similar lab (with a materials list), but it leaves out some steps and relies on a blender-- which we don’t have in our bodies. So this is my mish-mash of the two. WARNING: You may not want to read this post soon after eating, there are pictures of the process. Andrew Pudewa of IEW once said that a great way to engage kids who’d rather build forts all day was to make sure the subject was either funny, dangerous or gross. This activity falls into the last category…it was so engaging that my Schnickelfritz forgot to start taking pictures until half way through. Just what I want as a teacher, but bad for blogging so I recreated some of the first steps for this post. This is a fairly inexpensive project since you’ll probably find most of what you need in your house already. The foil pans you’ll see below came from a catered dinner – I just picked out the pans in the best shape and washed them up. I’ve used them for several years of science co-op. They’re big enough for two kids to work at each and allow me to work with liquids away from the sink. The person transferring the mixes from stage to stage may want a pair of gloves – rubber gloves for dish washing or plastic gloves from a hair dye kit. My husband the Toolman had just had surgery and the nurse let me have a few pairs from their supply drawer. THE MOUTH Supplies Equipment soft foods A bowl or tray drink kitchen shears water mixed w/ laundry detergent potato masher We begin with our lunch—a PB&J sandwich (great way to use up the heels which no one our house likes), a banana, and some grape-aid. Use whatever you have handy but try to keep it soft – it needs to be smashable so no carrots. You could probably add tortilla or potato chips which would dissolve with liquid. My inspiration sites used a can of spaghetti and oatmeal. I did go buy the drink packet, but didn’t waste any sugar since no one would actually be consuming it. The kitchen shears represent the incisors – cutting the food into bites. Pour some of the beverage in as well. This is still too big to swallow so we’ll begin to smash everything with the potato masher, playing the role of the molars. The water/detergent mixture represents saliva so pour some of that in now. Our detergent happens to be clear but if yours is colored don’t worry – we’re hoping to achieve a brown outcome so the more colors the merrier. Just remember all the liquid you add now will need to be removed in the small & large intestines so don’t add too much (we still have more to add later). Everything is now poured into a Ziploc bag. THE STOMACH Supplies Equipment Acidic liquid 1 Gal. Ziploc bag green food coloring When you close the Ziploc bag, make sure to remove most of the air. Otherwise when you start kneading the bag it may pop and we don’t need any reverse peristalsis here. We’ll also be adding something to represent stomach acid. One site used apple cider vinegar, but we happened to have just polished off a jar of dill pickles so I used that juice instead. Given a little time and an enthusiastic lab assistant you can create a fairly smooth chyme. I also added green food coloring to represent bile. This doesn’t happen in the stomach (and I explained that to the kids) but it is easier to mix the color in at this stage. THE SMALL INTESTINE Supplies Equipment no new supplies leg from pantyhose a deep tray to catch liquid rubber or surgical gloves canning funnel Next time you get a run in your hose you might want to save it to stand in for the small intestine. I didn’t have one so we used an old knee-high stocking. The funnel is really there for ease of transfer but you could mention it is playing the role of the sphincter, although it isn’t able to open and close like a real one could. Pour the chyme into the stocking over a tray because the liquid will start coming out immediately. Poor Mr. B in the photo above was thoroughly grossed out at this point, but he couldn’t resist watching his younger brother squeeze the mix through the intestine (he even managed to smile). The more liquid you manage to get out at this point, the less you’ll have to deal with in the next stage so you might want to expound on the process at this point and let the mix drain. You can either cut a hole the the toe of the stocking and push the mix through (more accurate), or roll the stocking up like you were going to put it on and then invert the mix out at the top. THE LARGE INTESTINE Supplies Equipment no added supplies a plush towel a deep tray to catch liquid Empty the contents of the stocking onto a folded towel. We’re going to wring the towel to remove more of the liquid just like what occurs in the large intestine. I used a very old towel for this part but after the lab it came out of the laundry perfectly clean. As long as you haven’t gone overboard with the food coloring and Kool-aid you should be fine. Open the towel and put the contents into a plastic bag for the final stage. The Rectum Supplies Equipment no added supplies a plastic bag a tray or plate What started out as lunch looks essentially done at this point and you could stop, but I used a gray shopping bag to represent the rectum. In hindsight that wasn’t the best choice as the bag just stretched and the mix came out in the same lumps we had from the large intestine. Perhaps we’d squeezed out too much water or perhaps we needed less flexible material. We could have used a cloth pastry bag –there weren’t any toxic materials used. In the end, nobody was too grossed out – in fact some of the boys are holding the end results in the photo and Schnickelfritz is just hamming it up for the camera. It will be some time before they forget our trip through the digestive system. Don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Ozark Ramblings and get my posts in your inbox.

Here's some fun shapes activities for toddlers and preschoolers! There's free printables and fun ideas to teach shapes to your kids!

This fun unit is perfect for a STEM Preschool camp, co-op, or just every day hands-on learning!

One of the classes our homeschool co-op is offering this spring is gardening for kids. The class is for 1st-3rd grades, and it is being taught by various master gardeners in our area. Many states have Master Gardener programs; you can check this website to find a program in your area. I have found that it is …

This is part 2 of a 6 part hands-on unit on Inventions and Simple Machines. Build and test catapults, lift an adult using a lever, test out screws of various threads, and more! My lessons are geared toward 3rd-4th grade level children and their siblings. These are lessons I created to do with a weekly homeschool co-op. We meet each week for 2 1/2 hours and have 13 children between the ages of 1-13. Use these fun lessons with your classroom, family, after school program, camp, or co-op!

Roundup of helpful resources for starting a Montessori playgroup or Montessori homeschool co-op; a variety of ideas and groups from around the world.

Teach preschool and kindergarten students all about community helpers with this fun class! Includes free, printable community helper activity pages.

Enjoy a hands-on curriculum to explore the senses with your homeschool group or co-op and have tons of fun!

Learn how to make your own Bug Bingo. Print out our bingo cards and make a game of finding out how many creatures you can identify.

Read great books, exercise, sing, lapbook, dance–this My Body preschool and kindergarten science class has it all! Using Homeschool Share’s FREE My Body Lapbook as my base, I put together a co-op class for preschool and kindergarten. I only used parts of the lapbook, but all the pages you need to print are noted in the weekly …

Are you looking for a homeschool co-op class idea? You may want to consider this delightful class which included tea, treats, and Beatrix Potter stories!

Have you ever wanted to start a co-op preschool? Inside this post I share how I set up my co-op preschool, how it works, and some curriculum ideas.

sold

Bridges are amazing feats of engineering and a great logic challenge for your children designers. Here are some resources to help teach them more about bridges and how they work. Lesson Plans Bridge Lesson on Forces, Arch Bridges, & Truss Bridges – a detailed hands-on unit study designed for a homeschool co-op. Bridge Lesson on […]

This Resource is perfect for a preschool classroom, a homeschool setting for Pre-K- Kindergarten, or a Homeschool Co-op. It includes: 1 (60-minute) Lesson Plan Picture Sort Worksheet set Object Sort Activity Race Game Living and Non-Living Relay Race Video Recommendation Fun Facts Sheet

Looking for a fun preschool class that will keep them learning, busy, and having fun? Little Builders fits all three categories! We started every class with a book about building. Here was our line-up: Week 1: I Want to Be a Builder Week 2: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel Week 3: The Toolbox Week …

Week 8: We built Greek Temples using large cardboard boxes. The temples of the ancient Greeks were somewhat similar to Churches in our cul...

Do you want to join a homeschooling co-op, but aren't sure what to contribute? You can easily create a class that you will love to teach and is fun too.

Please share!This year, Ben and I are trying something new. For one day a week, I let someone else teach him, while I teach a classroom of 8 wiggly, giggly kindergarten and first-graders. Yep, we’re in an organized co-op! I have co-op’ed in an rather unorganized fashion for the past 2 years with a couple […]

Mississippi Unit MS is one of the largest cotton producing states in the country. We decided to focus on cotton for this unit. K's "C is for Cotton" art I found this Puffy Paint recipe and the girls made cotton candy pictures. I bought the Wilton Decorating Squeeze Bottles at JoAnn's for a little over $2. They got a kick out of seeing how the paint puffs up after it's microwaved. Baby bear had some fun too! He usually doesn't get to paint but because this was made with all edible ingredients I let him go at it. When the kids ask to buy cotton candy, I typically say no because it's just sugar. However, I thought it would be a fun way to end our unit with that special treat. I don't have pics to show; it was eaten up fast :-). Books Read - Welcome to the USA: Mississippi, From Cotton to T-shirt, Working Cotton Missouri Unit Cotton may be a fun crop to study; however, it caused lots of problems for Southern farmers in the late 1800s. Constant cotton planting ruined the soil and in some years entire crops were destroyed by bugs. Then along came a scientist/inventor who devoted his time to finding other crops to improve the lives of these farmers who were mostly African American sharecroppers. For our Missouri Unit, we decided to study none other than George Washington Carver who was born in Diamond, MO. He developed the Crop Rotation Method which taught farmers to alternate soil-depleting cotton crops with soil-enriching crops such as peanuts and sweet potatoes. He discovered 300 different products for peanuts and more than 100 useful products from sweet potatoes! Carver did not patent or profit from most of his inventions. He freely gave them to society. He said, "God gave them to me. How can I sell them to someone else?" We started our unit by making the Best-Ever Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies. The name says it all; they were DELICIOUS! They also did a peanut butter video project that involved their homeschool co-op friends and a few others. The Introduction Video Unfortunately the 2nd video wouldn't load, but you can see it here. This is the finished pictograph. This project was so fun & cheap! We used left over poster board from our Rosa Parks project and printed the pics from online. Other Activities - GWC Coloring Sheet, Peanut Observation Sheet, Peanut Life Cycle Activity Books Read - Welcome to the USA: Missouri, A Picture Book of George Washington Carver, & George Washington Carver: Teacher, Scientist, Inventor

This is part 1 of a 5 part hands-on unit study on Floating & Flying (Fluid Mechanics). This week's focus is buoyancy (floating). Build an aluminium foil barge that can hold the most pennies, experiment with what floats and sinks and why, explore the relationship between density and buoyancy, and more! My lessons are geared toward 4th-5th grade level children and their siblings. These are lessons I created to do with a weekly homeschool co-op. We meet each week for 2 1/2 hours and have 33 childre

15 activities for kids that combine movement and art

Summer is coming, and so are the BUGS! A few years ago, my friend, Jodi taught two insect classes at co-op. I’ve asked her to guest post about the class. Most children are fascinated by insects, and this would make a fun class or club for this summer or fall. For our Fall semester 2012, …

Looking for preschool worksheets and printables for your little one? Here are tons of free - and fun! - perfect for back to school or homeschool planning

Crafts and activities for kids

Welcome! The following is the 2nd in a series of 24 lesson plans, Learning the ABC’s through Literature, the 1st year. It was written especially for classroom use within a homeschool co-op, and was designed to teach the alphabet, over the course of a school year, using classic …

Explore 15 class ideas for your kindergarten homeschool co-op. Art adventures to animal explorations, these classes foster learning...

Keep it simple. But try to understand the technique

When we studying trajectory as part of our middle school science co-op, we wanted to know the how far something would travel if we launched it with a catapult.

Ik publiceerde reeds een klokopoly spelbord waar je zelf vragenkaartjes voor diende te maken. Aangezien er zo veel vraag naar was heb ik speciaal voor jullie een klokopoly vragenset gemaakt voor he…

Have trouble getting the kids out the door on time before school? Try one of these awesome Back to School Morning Routine Hacks!