Beyond Co-op: Boxcar Children #4

I'm going to play a little catch up on my blog.  First a little about what is current.  Christopher is home!  I love having my whole family under one roof.  For a little while anyway.  We don't have much planned for the next couple of weeks and that is a good thing.  We have lots of planning and preparing to do for the upcoming year.  Him for college and the rest of us for our upcoming school year.  Its a time of big transitions for all of us.  I would love prayers for all of us.  I'm excited for Christopher.  I also know that this will be hard on the rest of us to have him gone.  Its a new way in which I need to learn to trust God and grow.  

I wanted to share a bit about our co-op.  This was our last formal meeting, though I also have another activity day to post.  I hope this is encouraging for anyone wanting to do Beyond.  It is a great unit study to use!  If you have any questions about it - know I'm happy to answer them.  

A fun ending to a fun year with Volume 1.  We covered the last chapters in the book.  One of the lessons we covered was on marathons.  We asked Christopher to talk with the children about running a marathon.  He gave some interesting facts on the history of marathons and told some of his experience in preparing for and running a marathon!  I loved having him share and think that the kids did too.

After listening and learning it was time to put them into action.

We had them run a race.  We marked out a 1/2 mile course for them to run and told them that a marathon would be like running this more than 52 times!

On your mark ... get set ...

GO!

They all found their pace.  Some running solo and others with a friend.

Next we focused on the part of the story about the names of two of the characters.  We talked about the meaning and family history behind some names.  We asked each of the children to share a little bit about their names and any meaning behind them.

For a fun art project we did potato prints.

I helped with the cutting for the younger students.

It is always fun to see the variety and creativity that they display!

We ended our day with a campfire.  This was from an earlier lesson in the book, but we were rained out on that day.  It was a fun thing to save for the last day together though!  Christopher showed the others how to build and start a fire.

They stopped for a group photo before starting to cook.

First we roasted hot dogs.

And then marshmallows to go in s'mores!

Gooey and yummy!!!

This has been a really special year.  I'm so thankful for this group of friends with which to learn!  We have had fun, learned a lot and made many sweet memories.  Thank you friends!!!

Love
Leslie