Using cooperative play initiatives the 6-9 year olds at HSoBX, a secular homeschool co-op in Tidewater, VA, explored practical life skills.

Our main focus was on giving respectful attention, learning how to be silent, and sharing limited resources.  Along the way we were blindfolded, made mazes out of tape, became super-heroes, pretended to be statues, learned an incredibly complicated handclap pattern,  and figured out that life is good even when there are not enough scissors to go around.

We created a nice rhythm in class that goes something like this:

• Hand toys
  Everyone picks a hand toy from the pile to play with during the sitting still parts of our time.
  
• Sharing
  Each students gets the floor, to speak about whatever they wish.  This is when we have a lot of time to practice giving respectful attention.
  
• Riddle I
  We discuss old riddles, share new riddles we've found, and hear the riddle of the week.
• Silence
  We play a silent game for five minutes.  Some of our choices are  Silent follow-the-leader, Silent get-your-friends-to-laugh, Silent be-still-like-a-statue, and Silent-see-how-long-you-can-keep-your-eyes-closed.
• Game of the week
• Riddle II
  We learn the answer to the riddle and have a discussion about everyone's guesses.
• Handclap and goodbye