First month of Mixed Class day

Wednesday was the first of the monthly "mixed class days" we have signed up for. We have found in the past that we don't do well with weekly co-ops or school like classes with homework. Large amounts of homework can conflict with what we are already learning at home and cause stress.
Another problem can be strict age limits where I might have close in age kids that still can't be in the same classes even if it's a topic they love as the tutor may have decided that their class is only for those age 10 or 12 or 16....
OTOH my children like to get out and do different things and I do think there is benefit in learning from a variety of people and learning to work with others. So when I heard about Mixed Class Day I was interested. Not only are the age limits fairly wide they also leave the ultimate decision about if a child is a good fit for a class to the parents. Also these classes are run by businesses who com out each month for a fee not by other parents so nobody has the stress of getting ready to teach the group and the businesses do not give homework. The classes are given and then it's up to you if you want to follow up at home. I like that, it's up to us to use the classes and info to our advantage not to a schedule someone else has thought up, probably because it best fits their family.
Lastly you can sign up for just one mixed class day or sign up each and every month, the choice is ours. I guess it is the freedom of this system that I like. Once a month, some choices as to what classes we'd like to choose, wider age ranges and freedom. It works for us!

The choices my kids chose are Mad Science Chemworks. This is a monthly chemistry class. They had great fun in the first mad science class.

and An animals plus geography class. Well if there is an animals class my kids will always be first in line there! In this class a variety of animals is brought to visit each month and the children learn some facts about the animals, their country, climate and habitats. This time the focus was Africa and it's animals. Eight animals came along to help the children learn about the different parts of Africa.

It was a good day.