Joyful Weeks 4 and 5 - Our Co-Op

 We always start the same each week: 

1) This semester I am sharing a short devotional around the idea of why we memorize scripture.  I'm taking my thoughts from HERE.  There are 10 Biblical reasons to memorize scripture so I'm sharing one each week. 

2) We then do our Joyful Bucket.  Each student has to name one thing that brought them joy throughout the week.  Sometimes this is hard.  I try to help them understand that their item doesn't have to be a "thing" - something they did or experienced - but rather even something simple they saw that brought them true joy. They also get to chose something out of our treat bucket. 

3) We review our scripture memorization.  We spend the semester memorizing scripture that we then share at presentation night. 

What changes each week are our activities. 

Week 4 - This was our semester "Breakfast and Bingo" class!  It's the highlight of the class for sure.  Each semester I find a bingo board on Pinterest to use and print them off.  We start with breakfast where I supply sausage balls, muffins, donut holes, fruit, milk and juice.  Then we play bingo the rest of the hour!  

Week 5 - After fighting sickness in our house, I was not mentally prepared for planning our co-op HA!  So we had our first ever "game day".  Everyone could bring in board games and play with friends.  It went surprisingly well as in no one was left out and everyone played games the entire hour. 

Sometimes when planning a class, it is always good to have an "easy" idea for either a substitute or for weeks that just are busy! 

Joyful Weeks 2 and 3 - Our Co-Op

 I realized last Wednesday evening that I forgot to post my weekly Wednesday post and decided that I would just combine weeks 2 and 3 of my Joyful class all together in one post.  

Weeks 2 and 3 started out the same way as week one.  

1) This semester I am sharing a short devotional around the idea of why we memorize scripture.  I'm taking my thoughts from HERE.  There are 10 Biblical reasons to memorize scripture so I'm sharing one each week. 

2) We then do our Joyful Bucket.  Each student has to name one thing that brought them joy throughout the week.  Sometimes this is hard.  I try to help them understand that their item doesn't have to be a "thing" - something they did or experienced - but rather even something simple they saw that brought them true joy. They also get to chose something out of our treat bucket. 

3) We review our scripture memorization.  We spend the semester memorizing scripture that we then share at presentation night. 

What changes each week are our activities. 

Our activity for week 2 was a team building activity that included popscicle sticks, tape, and a rubber band.  It also included NO talking as it was an activity build around non-verbal communication.  

The activity is sold on Teachers Pay Teachers and you can find it HERE. 

It was great to watch the teams work together and figure out how to communicate their ideas.  It was also interesting to see them look around at what others were doing to get ideas for their own projects.  

I told my class that this was my new favorite activity.  Why?  The silence HA!  We are usually a SUPER loud class so having them work in silence was a nice treat. 

Our activity for week 3 is called The Fishbowl Game.  We actually played it last semester and normally I do not bring back an activity the next semester UNLESS it is something that is requested by multiple people.  

The full instructions can be found HERE. 

We divided into two teams after everyone wrote down 3 nouns on 3 pieces of paper.  All of those papers are put into a large bowl.  Then three rounds are played - Taboo, Password, and Charades.  It's great because the same words are used in each round so, if they pay attention, they can use clues used in previous rounds.  I was actually surprised at how much everyone enjoyed this game AND that they requested to do it again.  It really is "The best party game".  

 

Thanksgiving Craft - Accordian Thankful Book

I shared the other day one craft we did in our last week of Friday School and now, I want to share the other.

In my searching of Pinterest (My favorite resource for all things related to teaching co-ops!), I came across an adorable Thankfulness book on Teachers Pay Teachers and knew I had to do it. 

This little accordion book is perfect for any kid from preschool through upper elementary.  For my class of 6-7 year olds, I premade the books by folding the paper, cutting out the turkey head and feathers and stapling it all together.  I was concerned about running out of time.  Depending on age, the kids could complete the whole thing on there own.  The printable comes with a cute poem as well as "I am thankful for . .. ." pages that get filled out and glued on each page.  This would make a great writing assignment for older grades or, as my class did, they can draw pictures on his card showing what they are thankful for as well.

You can find the full printable HERE.

Thanksgiving Craft - Scripture Turkey

Last Friday was the last day of Friday school.  To be honest, I was out of ideas (or desire) to come up with a great Bible themed lesson for my "Bibles for Little Learners" class.  So, I decided to focus on the one thing that made sense - Thanksgiving! 

To keep with the Bible theme, I searched for a simple Bible lesson to read and the story of  The Ten Lepers came up over and over.  I can't find the exact story I read but this one from Church House Collection is pretty close.

I also wanted to focus on a verse.  Just a true reminder of being thankful for what God gives us.  I came across this great idea over at mpmschoolsupplies.

This little turkey was super simple.  I was able to download the turkey and the feathers from Kikicreates.  I made my example using 8 1/2 x 11 card stock but quickly discovered that my turkey was bigger than the paper.  I thankfully (get it HA!) had some 12x12 white scrapbooking paper that I could use for my class.  I would actually recommend printing the Turkey/feathers smaller so that he will fit on regular paper.  Please note, I wrote the words and verse on the items before printing.  Once glued on the paper, the students had to add legs and eyes.  (I use googly eyes whenever I can because they are FUN!!)

This craft is a fun, simple idea for Sunday School or even as a center in a classroom on a day of Thanksgiving fun!

Bible For Little Learners - Co-Op Class

I've mentioned many times about "Friday School" - it's part of the Co-Op that we participate in along with field trips, community days and more.  This semester I'm teaching two different classes and I thought I'd share about one of them today.  I know I have appreciated finding blog posts about Co-Op Classes when I'm trying to plan what I'm going to teach next! 

The curriculum I'm using can be purchased at Teachers Pay Teachers as either single units, which I am using, or as a complete bundle which would take you through an entire year (for Christian Schools or Sunday Schools). 

The file "arrives" as a zipfile that you can then use to pick and choose from based on your needs.  I love the fact that it includes the story in printed form, review questions and even a parent letter.  I've tweaked the parent letter to fit our set up but you wouldn't have to since it is pretty generic.  It also includes a song for each lesson that are fairly easy to find on Youtube as well.  There are several activities to chose from based on the size of your class and ages in your class. 

The interactive notebook is great!  At the end of our semester we have a presentation night where the teachers set up a table to show off what they class has done.  My class is creating their interactive notebook to have on display.  It's such an easy thing to do for great review.  I love that the creators of this curriculum supplied both a black and white version that the kids can color AND a full color option.  I use the full color set - if I had the kids color the whole thing I think we would still be on unit 1!!

Another awesome thing are the lesson plans. Each lesson includes a week long lesson plan for classroom teachers but also a "Sunday School" version that you can make fit into the normal hour long class, which is the one I use. 

I haven't taken a lot of pictures of the class but here is one photo of one of the projects the class did.

They used water color paints to color their paintings and we will also set these out at presentation night too.