How Often Should a Homeschool Co-op Meet? Weekly, Fortnightly or by the Festivals

There's no set rule for how often a homeschool co-op should meet, and HSLDA puts the range at anywhere from several times a week to once a month. For a small Waldorf-inspired group, one morning a week is the usual choice, because children settle into a rhythm they can count on. Meeting every other week suits families who are stretched, and a monthly or festival gathering suits a looser group. The best choice is the one your parents can keep up from September to June.

How often should a homeschool co-op meet?

Co-ops set their own rhythm. HSLDA says co-ops meet "anywhere from several times a week to once a month". The Texas Home School Coalition says classes may be weekly, monthly or on whatever timetable the leaders decide. The Homeschool Mom points out that a co-op can meet only once a month, or only for half-days.

Home education groups in Victoria, Australia show the same spread. Among the groups the Home Education Network lists, some meet every Wednesday during term, some meet fortnightly on a weekday afternoon, and one meets on the third Tuesday of each month.

So look at your own group: what the children need, what the parents can carry, and what you want the co-op to be. If you haven't answered that last one yet, how to start a Waldorf homeschool co-op begins there.

Weekly: the steadiest rhythm

A weekly morning is the most common choice for a small Waldorf-inspired co-op, and it fits the way Waldorf families already think about time.

WECAN, the Waldorf early childhood association in North America, writes that young children need a stable world around them, including "the basic sequence of events in their day, their week and their year". A co-op on the same morning each week becomes part of that sequence. A four-year-old may not know it's Tuesday, but she knows that after the day at home with the bread comes the day with the candle, the circle and her friends.

Weekly also suits the things a group does best. A story told in parts can carry through a term. A circle learned together gets fuller each week as the children know more of the words. A knitting project can pass from one week's handwork time to the next.

What it asks of parents: one morning every week, plus a turn at leading. For three or four families, that usually means leading every second or third week. Homeschool co-op parent jobs has a schedule you can copy.

Every other week

Meeting fortnightly halves the load. It can suit a group where parents work part-time, where families live far apart, or where one parent is leading with a baby on her hip.

A few things help it hold:

• Keep the same weekday. "Every other Thursday" is easier for everyone to remember than a date that moves.
• Keep the same order of the morning, from arrival and circle through to the closing verse. When the gap is longer, the familiar order helps the children find their way back in.
• Choose stories that stand alone, or recap well. A long story told in parts is harder to follow with two weeks between each part.
• Put the dates on one calendar for the whole term, so no family has to ask "is it this week?"

Expect the first half hour to take a little longer each time. Children who meet less often may need more free play before they're ready for circle.

Monthly, or with the festivals

Some groups meet once a month. One UK home education parent describes hosting a group in her home once a month, with a longer gap over Christmas. Others gather only for the festivals, from Michaelmas in autumn to St John's in midsummer.

This is the lightest commitment, and it gives families the thing that's hardest to do alone: a lantern walk with twenty lanterns, or a Michaelmas dragon bread shared around a long table. The Waldorf co-ops and pods guide describes the monthly festival co-op in more detail.

The trade-off is that children see each other less, and a story told in parts is hard to carry across the months. Some groups do both: a small weekly group, and a bigger festival gathering that other families join.

In terms, with rests between

Whatever the frequency, most parent-led groups don't meet all year round. Several groups on the Victorian list meet only during school terms.

A term shape suits a Waldorf-inspired co-op well. You might meet through one school term, rest over the holidays, and start again with a new story and new songs for the season. Give the last meeting of each term to a festival or a small sharing, with the children's paintings on the wall. Give the break to the parents: an evening together to plan the next term, as described in the first co-op meeting agenda.

What about meeting more than once a week?

Some Waldorf-inspired programs do. The Coastal Waldorf co-op meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 to 1:00. Tidewater Waldorf homeschool co-op meets on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9:30 to 1:30. These are bigger programs, with set classes by age and more structure than a group of families teaching in turns.

The Schoolhouse, writing for people starting small learning programs, suggests one or two meetings a week is usually enough at first, and says more than that adds staffing and parent logistics.

There's another reason to be careful. HSLDA says a group that meets once or twice a week for a couple of hours "will probably provoke less scrutiny" than one meeting every day for six hours. Rules differ by state and by country, so if your group wants to meet several days a week, check with your state homeschool association, an insurer or a lawyer before you do.

How the co-op day fits the Waldorf week at home

A co-op morning isn't a school day. In a Waldorf school the main lesson runs for two hours every morning, and Davis Waldorf School describes one subject being explored in depth for three to four weeks at a time. That kind of steady work happens at home. The co-op adds the parts that need other people: circle with a full ring of children, painting side by side, the festivals.

So plan your home week around the co-op day, rather than the other way round.

• Treat co-op day as that week's special day. Many Waldorf families give each weekday its own activity, as the Waldorf homeschool daily rhythm describes. The co-op can take the place of painting day or outing day.
• Skip main lesson at home on co-op day, or keep it to a short recap in the afternoon.
• Keep the next morning gentle. Children often come home full after a morning in a group. A quiet morning at home, with a familiar story and the main lesson book, can help them settle again.
• Don't start a new block on co-op day. Begin a new main lesson block on a home day, when you have the child's full attention.

Here's how one week might look for a family with a grade 2 child and a co-op on Wednesday:

Day	At home	Co-op
Monday	Main lesson, practice, painting
Tuesday	Main lesson, practice, handwork
Wednesday	Short recap in the afternoon	Circle, story, snack, outside, painting or handwork
Thursday	A quiet main lesson, time outside
Friday	Main lesson, baking, an outing

If you meet every other week, the off-weeks go back to your usual home rhythm. For what happens inside the co-op morning itself, see the Waldorf co-op day schedule.

Choosing your rhythm

Talk it through at your first parents' meeting. These questions usually settle it:

If your group...	Try
Has young children and wants a story that runs through the term	Weekly
Has parents who work, or who live far apart	Every other week, same weekday
Mostly wants the festivals and some company	Monthly, or at each festival
Isn't sure yet	Weekly for one term, then look again

Whichever you pick, write it down with the term dates, and don't change it mid-term. Starpath for co-ops is free to run. It keeps the group calendar and job schedule next to a shared Waldorf-inspired program of stories, crafts and festivals.

What to do this week

1. Ask each family which mornings they could keep every week, and which only some weeks.
2. Pick a frequency and one weekday.
3. Set term dates with a rest between terms.
4. Mark the last meeting of each term as a festival or sharing.
5. Plan your home week around the co-op day, with no new block on that day.

Looking for a group rather than starting one? The Waldorf Map shows Waldorf schools, parent and child groups and co-ops near you.