Are you tired of ho-hum co-op classes? Do you need a creative class? A challenging class? A class that teaches team work? This class does all three of those–it is one of my favorites!
Think! Team Building Challenge teaches kids to learn from failure, promotes creative thinking and problem solving, and helps them learn to work together.
This class was born out of my desire to do these creative-critical thinking projects with my son. I always struggled to find the time to work them into our homeschool schedule.
Each week students received a stack of supplies and one basic instruction such as construct a tall-as-possible tower. No instructions were given. My helper and I tried not to give much advice or ideas. The students built by our motto: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!
I'm not going to claim that this class was all gumdrops and rainbows. We had moments of failure; moments of frustration– red faces and even some tears. But we also had those tiptop mountain moments–the second of success after the struggle. Amazing.
We repeated our motto (or battle cry) at the beginning of every class. "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!"
You can download the syllabus and supply list here.
If you have to teach co-op next semester, and haven't chosen your class, seriously consider this one. It's brainy-building and fun!
I have lots of Creative Homeschool Cooperative Classes compiled here on the blog.
You can also check out my Homeschool Co-op Class Ideas Pin Board.
Follow Homeschool Share's board Homeschool Co-op Class Ideas on Pinterest.
Thanks so much for sharing your awesome idea for a co-op class. Just finished a 26 week co-op class with 13 4th – 6th graders and they had a blast doing the ideas you have here and some others that I pulled from the Think blogspot you linked to. And I had a lot of fun teaching them too.
Love this, Sheila!!!
I love this class idea! Can I ask how long your classes were and if the task really kept the kids busy the whole time? I imagine offering the class and then having the kids bored looking at me halfway through. Also, did they take their creations home or did you pull them apart at the end of each class?
Classes were 60 min each. Sometimes we did two projects in one session. I kept all the plastic forks, knives, and spoons handy in case there was a team finished early. They worked on beating their former “plasticware tower” if there was extra time. Hope that helps!