Sunday, February 22, 2009

Our Homeschool Group

One of the things that everyone wants to know about when they hear that we are homeschooling is socialization. How do we get the kids around other kids? Do they have friends? How do we keep them from being bored at home?
The answer to these questions is yes, our children socialize with other children! We socialize through martial arts, basketball, library story hour, church, and our local homeschool group.

Ever since we've first started homeschooling, we've been part of a fairly large Catholic homeschooling group. It is a great group, and we've done a lot of fun things with them...but it's a 45 minute drive. We are not always able to participate in the activities because of the distance. I've always wished that there were something closer to where we live.

This year, there are three other homeschooling families just in our small church! And from the Department of Education website, we can see that there were about 160 kids in our county registered to homeschool last year. We know that they are out there, but we didn't have an organized group. So a few of us started meeting regularly back in November and have been putting ads in the paper and spreading the news by word-of-mouth. Things are finally starting to take off. Our last playgroup had nine families show up! Not bad for our small town, and I hear that there are many more interested that we haven't met yet. Some of the moms have created an email group and a calendar of activities. So far, we've had park playdates, visited the museum, participated in the Christmas parade, have made crafts, and had a Valentine's Day party. We have planned in the next couple months a science fair, an art exhibit, tie-dyeing t-shirts, and a basic self-defense/stranger danger class for children (which I will teach). We are also putting together a 'yearbook', with pictures of our activities and playdates.

Mojo now has two best friends that she sees several times a week. Caveman has found a little boy his age who loves to wrestle just as much as he does. And I am making some really good friends as well.

We had a float in the Christmas parade:
Christmas parade Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket

And here are some pictures from our play dates...
homeschool playgroup girlfriends Photobucket Photobucket playing at the park 1-12-09 Photobucket Photobucket

2 comments:

  1. Paula- Great post! I too am wanting to post on this. I have many other great photos too add you will be happy to see. I just need to get with a few of the new moms on posting their childs photo.

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  2. Oh, good point about mom's permission. I hadn't thought of that. I've blurred out some of the faces.

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