How Does Your Garden Grow?

Twice a month, on Thursdays, Abbie and I join with two other families for our home school co-op, which is a highlight of our week.

We start our co-op with a devotional, which includes a song and a prayer. Then we either recite the poem we've been working on memorizing or we discuss the book we've been reading. Then we (the moms) teach the lesson and do the activities involved. When we're finished with the learning time we have lunch and play time. Play for the children involves all the physical movement they can muster and play for the mothers involves all the talking we can cram into the time we have remaining, which is never enough.

At our last co-op at Jennifer's house we learned about seeds and plants and the law of the harvest.

Here Tami is teaching the kids about seeds. Our style, as you can see, is very relaxed and comfortable. We like the floor.

The children are listening intently as Tami explains the rules of a game they're going to play about seeds and plants. We also had two cousins visiting with us who were on their Spring break.

Jen then had the kids prepare plates with different seeds and wet paper towels for an experiment about sprouting.

My part involved planting. I brought each family a little peat pellet greenhouse and we planted a variety of seeds for our up-coming gardens.

Not surprisingly, Abbie planted mostly flower seeds, not too many vegetable seeds!

And here are the seeds, watered and planted all cozy in their peat pellets and starting to do their thing.

Here they are 2 1/2 weeks later! We are going to have sunflowers and watermelon a-plenty!

I love this little co-op we have this year. I've been involved with different groups of mothers and children through our years of home schooling and each group has it's own special mix. But the things that remains constant are that the children are always very kind and sweet people and the mothers are always wonderful women. I love being with them and learning from them. As different as we each are, the common ground that unites us in a very profound way is life in the home school trenches that we have each chosen. That is a big connect.

And, we get to play in the dirt with our kids!