If you have ever considered teaching a little homeschool class, do!

[Carol in Cal.]

I started a literature class that meets about every 3-4 weeks at the beginning of this school year. It has worked out great! The children have bonded, and they are all kids who really like to read.

Usually we talk about a novel that I assign, but last week we discussed "The Chambered Nautilus" which is a long, inspiring, difficult poem by Oliver Wendall Holmes. They got it! They really got it! And they enjoyed it, too. As I did, actually.

This is very personally rewarding for me, and DD has made some great friends because we did this.

[momo4]

Good for you! I think it takes a lot of courage to start one of these classes. Next year I want to teach an elective through our homeschool groups electives co-op, but I feel intimidated by it.

I would love to hear other things people have taught to homeschool groups. Our electives go from preschool to high school so there are all sorts of things I could teach.

[Carol in Cal.]

Since we meet every 3-4 weeks, they all do other literature at times.

That way I get children who really want to do more literature than their normal curricular stuff, so they self-selected into a great group.

Also, this way I don't feel resentful about the time commitment as I might if it were a weekly offering.

I advertised on two email lists, and I may have posted it here as well; just in case there was a Bay Area WTMer that wanted to join in.

I got about 13 families who were interested, and they boiled down to 6 plus DD who actually showed up. They don't all come every week. I designed it so that each week builds on the last in literary elements, but is self-contained in literature. That way if someone misses a meeting, they miss an entire work but can easily catch up with the other material.

I am working up to reading "The Diamond in the Window" with them in a couple of months. "The Chambered Nautilus" is referred to significantly in that book, and so is "Little Women" which is what we are reading next. But even without that background, TDW will be a great read and have lots of room for discussion.

Th

[Rebecca in VA]

I started a Year One Upper Grammar course to give my own daughter some social interaction and to force myself to teach ancient history, which I'm not terribly fond of. It has been a delightful year. My students -- all girls -- are so smart and so eager that I can hardly provide enough work for them. I'm constantly looking for more books (we're reading through the Dialectic fiction books as well as all the UG books, and I'm still looking for more great fiction titles!). We have "celebrated" every Jewish holiday, learned rudimentary Hebrew, and this weekend we'll visit a synagogue. We'll put on two plays (one is tomorrow -- we're doing a Queen Esther play). The girls have presented two excellent reports each. We do crafts often. We have wonderful book discussions. I absolutely love doing this!

However, I won't teach the class next year. I've found that preparing lectures and teaching the material myself at my home every week is taking up a vast amount of time, and my daughter is being shortchanged in her other subjects. Plus, I want to spend two weeks on each topic in Year Two, which means I may be stretching Year Two out to two years. I think one of the other moms wants to continue the class, and I hope she does. Doing TOG with a group is a tremendous amount of fun.

[Jean in Newcastle]

That is great that it is going so well for you! It sounds like you are a good teacher.