May Grandview Program and Art Co-op

This week was our last Grandview Co-op for the 2014/2015 School Year.  We have had so many great programs this year and the children (and their parents) have learned so much!  I believe that children learn better by being able to experience new things and do hands on activities to go along with them.  One of our great resources in Arkansas is the funding of our state parks with the 1/8 cent conservation sales tax.  Because of this we have great opportunities to take advantage of many free educational programs.  The staff at Grandview has gone above and beyond to put together exciting educational programs for us.

Some of the topics and projects we have had for the science portion this year were:

September- Birds- painting a gourd bird house

October- Fish- Fashion a fish

November-Recap of mammals, fish, birds, insects, reptiles, amphibians- diorama of a habitat with all of the different types of animals

December- Nature Crafts

January- No co-op due to illness

February-White Tail Deer- color and decorate deer in their habitat

March- Birds of Prey- We took home an owl pellet to dissect

April- Possum- mama possum with babies, possum pouch, mama possum, 2 month old possum

For our May program, we did Alligators.  We had a program about the different features of alligators, what they eat, where they live etc.. Then we got to meet and hold Mr. Al E. Gator.  Some of the children were a little nervous about him at first, but by the time we went home, my girls wanted to bring Al home with us!!

After that, we made a paper craft alligator.

Each month we take a short lunch break after the morning program and then after lunch, I teach an art co-op.  Each month we feature a different artist, view some of his works, create a notebook page for that artist, and try to recreate a piece of artwork similar to what the artist would have done while exposing the children to different types of art materials.

This year we covered:

September: John James Audubon-nature drawing-water colors

October- Georges Seurat -pointillism-acrylic paints

November- Grandma Moses- variety of materials

December- Alexander Calder-sculpture- construction paper and pipe cleaners

January- no co-op

February- Michelangelo- frescoes- clay and watercolors

March- Henri Matisse- cut paper collage- cardstock

April- Degas- chalk pastels

 For the month of May we learned about Vincent van Gogh.  Our project was to recreate something similar to what he would have done using oil pastels.

While we will not be having any other homeschool co-op days until next fall, there are several summer programs going on and I am sure we will have a chance to take part in a few of those.

Happy Homeschooling!