First Day of Co-Op, 2015!

Thursday, August 6! That's the day we've been waiting for all summer . . . our first day of Co-op for the 2015-2016 school year!  And, wow!  Did it ever come fast.  At least for the moms!  This year, we have 13 families and over 40 kids!  This is the biggest group in Tapestry of the Desert's 8 year history, and this year, we have 5 classes--a Rhetoric level class for the first time. We sadly said goodbye to our dear friends the Meiters and Schumachers.  But, said a happy hello to the Hwangs and Wongs. The Rhetoric class had a guest speaker, Pastor Smedley Yates of Grace Bible Church in Chandler.  He talked with the class about having a Christian worldview, especially when learning about such topics in history as the crusades.  The Dialectic class started a three week project, building castles out of pint sized cartons and construction paper.  They are looking awesome!  In Upper Grammar, the kids learned about the fall of the Western Roman Empire and they made delicious maps out of cookie dough.  The Lower Grammar class also did some mapping, but they made models of landforms out of bread.  How creative!  Finally, our Five in a Row class read the book, "Brigid's Cloak."  It's the ancient Irish story of one of their most beloved saints, Brigid.  Brigid receives a beautiful blue cloak when she is born and as she grows, the cloak (or her imagination?) takes her to a crowded city called Bethlehem! The kids then made cone dolls of Brigid!