This school year, we ended our second year of science co-op. When I first started trying to form one, I tried looking online for information on homeschool co-ops, but couldn’t find any. (Not that I really know what search terms to type to begin with.) Now that I’ve had tried co-ops for a few years, I’m hoping to share some of the lessons I learned along the way of forming one.
Our Co-op Setup
First, if you’re impatient, here’s our current co-op set up after a few years of trial and error. I will list the hows, whys, and lessons learned later.
1. Maximum 6 kids
Because some families had siblings who will flit in and out of the classroom, we can get up to 8 kids, which is about as much noise as I can take. An even more ideal situation is if we had a third teacher teaching the young siblings the same curriculum in another room. But alas, we could not find such a teacher.
The other reason for the limit of 6 is just available space in a residential house and amount of mess kids can leave behind after a day of playing. Don’t want the hosting family to go crazy cleaning up dishes and what not.
We try to make sure our kids have a maximum age difference of 3 years, again a Montessori concept. I’ve found that this is about right. Otherwise there’s just too much of a difference between what the oldest and the youngest can do and someone is always bored.
2. One teacher and one assistant teacher per subject.
Eclectic Mama taught Chinese History and I teach Science. We are each other’s assistant teacher. Fleur is happy to help when we need a third pair of hands or help distract the younger siblings when necessary. I tell other parents they can just drop off their kids.
The lead teacher plans the lessons and preps for everything. We ask each other for resources we don’t have at home like construction paper, play dough, food coloring, etc.
We take the one teacher approach so the kids will listen to the leading parent. When parents are in the room, kids tend to have more meltdowns or refuse to work. Within our co-op, we try to remind the kids that they need to listen to the ‘teacher’, though a parent will step in if a kid really isn’t listening to the teacher’s attempt to engage them. (Because the parent is in the room, they have to step in.)
We typically find one curriculum or book to follow, like Real Science Odyssey, and jump off from that. A step by step curriculum like RSO allows you to not prep when you don’t have time. When you do, you can research other more fun activities to engage the children.
3. Collect $15 for material fee per session.
Each session is 6-8 weeks long, with 1 week off for field trips or prep. This is kind of a loose setup. We usually pitch in for materials needed anyway, partly because I’m always texting parents at 8am the day of co-op asking if someone has some supply. Horray for last minute prep!
The fee is mainly there so that parents take the co-op seriously. When things are free, people feel no qualms (including me!) about cancelling last minute, showing up late, not doing homework, etc. Well, technically, none of us parents could get our kids to do homework, so I changed our setup to do homework in class.
4. Meet once a week at a parent’s house from 9:30-2:30 for 2 classes
We start with 30 min play time, then 1.5-2 hours of Science class, followed by lunch, then another 1-1.5 hour of Chinese History. The kids play after class.
The schedule is kind of loose unlike a real class, because some kids take longer than others to finish their work. But this is the general framework. Sometimes, when I have energy, I read picture books related to our topic during lunch.
Our kids all wake up later, usually by 9. So the late start time is to give kids time to wake up and commute to class.
5. Only accept new students when their parents have low expectations coming in.
I make sure to mention several times, in various ways, that we’re creating a co-op because otherwise we wouldn’t get around to studying this at home, that I’m not the best teacher there is, that the kids play a lot, and don’t learn much.
Reality is probably not as bad as I paint it. But it’s better that parents don’t feel like they’re wasting time by sending their kids to co-op. I like to set the expectation low so they’re happy when the kids do learn!
One main reason the the parents in our co-op sign up is for socialization. Secondary is otherwise they don’t teach science or chinese history at home. So in general, they’re happy with whatever the kids do learn in class.
Tips for starting your own co-op
1. Have an idea of what you want out of your co-op
So obvious but hard to know until you’ve tried various set ups. The first co-op we had didn’t work out for me, though in hindsight it was also what we needed at the time. We needed to hang out with a bunch of Chinese homeschoolers and make friends.
Though this first co-op, where we took turns hosting and teaching, I realized that I had a very specific idea of how I wanted the kids to learn, namely hewing more to the Montessori curriculum. I didn’t want just sensorial projects, nor did I want a all lecture and worksheets, and I wanted the kids to discuss and think per Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding curriculum.
I also learned that when I teach, I need structure and not too much noise. This means that I needed a small size co-op that looked a bit more like a classroom, with one teacher, set times for learning and playing, and parents that are not in the same room.
Plus if I weren’t teaching, I would want to just toss my kids to that one teacher, so I can talk to other parents! But many co-ops are structured so that all parents are there to help with the teaching.
2. Put yourself out there.
There’s no magic. It’s a lot of work finding bilingual homeschoolers. Two things worked for me.
One is luck. I was lucky to have found Eclectic Mama and she was someone who was willing to talk curriculum, willing to teach kids in Chinese, provide space when needed or drive far when needed. I was then lucky to find another bilingual homeschooler who was willing to just put her kids in our class, with no expectations of how much they learn. Lastly, I was lucky they were both willing to commit the time and effort to a weekly class.
Second is putting myself out there. We found many bilingual homeschoolers because Eclectic Mama started her Facebook group. That’s how I found her! Then she chatted up everyone who joined and lived close to us. I also made an effort to participate in various FB raising bilingual kids groups so that people know I’m homeschooling or to find other people who want to homeschool.
Both of us blog and I think it also helped in making bilingual homeschooling a possible option in people’s minds. At least that’s what one parent told me. And when they start homeschooling, if we need more kids, I ask them to join!
If you want it to happen, you gotta make the effort. You have to make the effort to find committed people, to figure out what you want to teach, find curriculum if necessary, set up the structure, and drive weekly after week.
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that people are waiting for you to make it happen. They’re more likely to join anything you want to accomplish if there is a structure set up, expectations clearly communicated, and all they have to do is to decide if they want to join. People don’t necessarily want to plan.
3. Clearly communicate your expectations up front before class starts
This can be hard when people are your friends. How do you tell them that you’d prefer that they show up on class on time, or that you’d like it better if they just drop off the kids. Sometimes you’re just desperate for other bilingual homeschoolers to hang out with! What if they don’t want to join your co-op?
But I have learned that if I clearly defined what I wanted per #1, then creating a co-op that doesn’t match my ideal, and finding other willing parents who are okay with this ideal, will mean its eventual demise. Homeschoolers have so many instruction options, if a class doesn’t meet their expectations, they will drop out. It is better if people come in understanding what they will get out of the class.
4. Find people willing to drive.
Even though we have a lot of homeschoolers in our area, we live in a big region. Everyone is about 20-30 minutes away without traffic, and with traffic it can take up to an hour.
So many of the fieldtrips, playdates, or co-ops we’ve tried to start up have failed due to people not wanting to drive. It is such a limiting factor on top of finding people who homeschool in Chinese.
So make sure you suss out how willing a parent is to make a commitment to driving to your co-op location before you start!
5. Find parents with similar goals, expectations, and discipline styles.
So often co-op starts amongst friends and if you have different discipline or classroom management style, it can be problematic. Similarly, if the class doesn’t meet their needs or expectations, they will drop out. (Again, it’s important to communicate your vision before you start!)
I’m very thankful that I found fellow homeschoolers who are okay with whatever I’m doing and were patient with me figuring out how to teach 6 kids.
6. Gradually add new kids into the class
I run our co-op much like a Montessori class room where the limit is 6 people and when we add people, we add 1-2 kids at a time so as not to disrupt the class routine that the kids are used to.
It usually takes these homeschooled children a while of having a strong routine to get used to the idea that this is a class, taught by their mom. In the beginning, they like to run away when they get bored, or even when they don’t feel like going to class that day!
For example, we started a Legos co-op this summer. The first week at the new host family’s house, all the children were jumping off the walls. They kept leaving the table whenever they had to wait for others to finish. Astroboy was driving me bonkers running off to play with all the new toys in a new house he’s never been to.
It took several weeks and some after class yelling to remind my children that I’m their teacher when we have co-op and they need to give their teacher some respect. They don’t go running off in a paid class, and they should not go off running in a co-op either.
Once my kids fell in line a bit more, the other kids did as well, especially as the novelty of having a class in a house wears off. When the summer ends, we will add 2 more friends from our Science co-op, and I foresee another few weeks of adjustment for the kids until they find their groove.
Again, points #2 & #4 are very important here. I mentioned several times to the parent, before our co-op started, to have low expectations on my teaching skills. And thankfully she has been very hands off during class and gave me the time to figure out how to get a new group of kids to work together.
On a side tangent, several friends have remarked to me they’re amazed I can teach my kids. I’ve yet to convince them it just takes time and some mental adjustment for everyone. For example, a teacher (that I choose to send my kids to) wouldn’t yell at kids the way I get mad at mine in class. I have infinitely more patience and forgiveness when it’s other people’s kids and I have to always remember that I should treat mine the same.
Other Lessons Learned from Teaching
1. There’s no need to rush the curriculum
A co-op isn’t successful because you’ve managed to check off a long list of knowledge to learn. It’s successful when the kids retain that information 6 months later or when their interests are piqued and they pursue it outside your weekly class.
As with anything else, it’s the consistency that does the trick.
The first year of science co-op, I used the Montessori’s Five Great Lessons as our scope and sequence, we zoomed through Astronomy (The Creation of Universe), Geology (Coming of Life), Zoology & Botany (Coming of Life), Humans (Coming of Humans) in 6+ months before we jetted off for WSA18. We then covered History of Writing by putting together a play in Chinese!
It looked really great on paper. But I didn’t feel like the kids remembered anything. I probably learned the most through prepping. It was just too much info too quickly.
The second year, I changed my tactic. We were going to learn deep instead. We started with a month or two on rocks and minerals. Then we jumped into intro to chemistry and focused on learning the elements in the periodic table for 2-3 months before we left for WSA19.
Going slowly on one subject made much more of an impression. The kids now get excited when the see element names on t-shirts and can actually remember some of them in Chinese.
Of course, this doesn’t quite fit the Montessori philosophy of showing how everything is inter-related. So I may modify it again next year to add the Great Lesson component before we dive deep.
And voila! If you want to see some of the things we did in our co-op, you can check out the posts I wrote for the first session on astronomy during our 2017-2018 year. Just scroll down to Science.
