Author: apollo

The History of CKC

apollo Uncategorized

Creative Kids Co-op has been meeting every Friday morning for more than two decades. In 1993, two moms, Mrs. Jane Fowler and Mrs. Teresa Patton, began the program, not knowing how large the co-op would become in the future.

Mrs. Fowler and Mrs. Patton had been homeschooling together for some time already. Each week, one mom would teach both children for two days. The other two days, they taught their own kids. Mrs. Fowler and and Mrs. Patton wanted their children, Anne Fowler and David Patton, to be in a group setting one day a week with other kids their age. Both Mrs. Fowler and Mrs. Patton had experience teaching, so they decided to begin a homeschool co-op together.

When they first started CKC, they didn’t have much curriculum. They mostly visited the library for ideas. As the co-op began to grow, and more moms got on board, Mrs. Fowler and Mrs. Patton visited similar homeschool co-ops in Richmond and Florida for advice.

In the first year of Creative Kids Co-op, there were only ten children participating. They met every Friday morning at the Cornerstone Church in Bridgewater, which is now a Russian Baptist church. Students made crafts, played games, and put on plays.

When asked what long-term benefits the co-op provided, Jane Fowler said, “My children and I made life-long friends.  We were able to travel as a family and with friends.  My daughter was able to study multiple languages and went on to major in French and Latin in college.”

by L.H., seventh grade CKC student

 

CKC’s IEW Class

apollo Student Articles

Every Friday morning at Creative Kids Co-op, students from the 5th through 7th grade classes meet in the West Multipurpose Room to discuss different styles of writing in the IEW (Institute for Excellence in Writing) class. Reports, creative writing, and even poetry have been covered in this class, which is taught by Mrs. B. Mrs. B. makes the class fun by giving candy as prizes and inventing vocabulary games, such as Vocabulary Baseball and Around the World. Games like these test the students’ memory and require quick response time.

This year, the IEW book covered in Mrs. B’s class was about ancient civilizations. Students wrote about important cities like Egypt, Rome, Greece, and Ancient Sumer.

To make their papers more interesting, students were required to include certain “dress-ups”–clauses, vocabulary words, strong verbs, alliteration, etc.

The most enjoyable writing unit was by far the creative writing section. Students retold classic fairy tales, wrote stories inspired by pictures sequences, and more. In one lesson, “Borrowing a Conflict,” students stole plots from well-known fairy tales or books and built their own stories around them. Examples include The Boy Who Cried Ice Cream by I. W. (based on The Boy Who Cried Wolf) and YOLO Swaggins and the Fellowship of the Bling by L. H., (based on The Lord of the Rings).

IEW is an amazing class that unlocks the tools of writing and teaches students valuable life skills.

by L.H., seventh grade CKC student