Networking, finding options in your community, etc?

[rafiki]

.

[Guest]

Sign up for online newsletters from the museums in your area; ours have provided free or low-cost classes in everything from 3-D mapping to modern art to printmaking and paper airplane making.

 

If you have access to a zoo (or even better, a wild animal park), see whether they have education programs. Our local park had a series of monthly homeschool classes dd attended for seven years; as the kids got older they just got better -- dd participated in an alligator painting session (paintings its feet and tail and letting to walk across paper to a treat -- the staff hung the painting over the park entrance one year -- and then helping to give it a bath afterwards); making scent trails for aardvarks; making meatballs for tigers; touring the vet hospital and the DNA preservation center; going out into the park in trucks to feed giraffes and hippos. It was an amazing program.

 

Some Girl or Boy Scout troops are welcoming of homeschoolers; others are more school-based and your child will be odd one out.

 

If you have a university or college nearby, that, too can be a wonderful source of programs for children. Ours has a physics program for middle-schoolers, sports programs, and a whole passel of summer camps, both university-sponsored and just using university grounds. Ours has acting camps, science camps for younger kids and serious science programs for high schoolers (including the Sally Ride camp for girls), Math Olympiad programs, etc.

 

Theaters also can offer classes for kids, summer programs or year-round.

 

Get on email lists for everything you think your kids might enjoy!

[Mom22ns]

Get on a local homeschool listserv. My area has about 5 yahoo groups for homeschoolers, but one has over 2,000 people on it and has every community and homeschool option available represented. My community isn't large and is very conservative. Most people use Life Pacs or Abeka. So I don't learn about curriculum there, but I learn about many wonderful community opportunities that I would never have found otherwise.

[NanceXToo]

You might want to call some places (if their websites don't help) in your area and see what they offer.

 

Our local bowling alley runs a "homeschool bowling league" twice a year.

 

Our YMCA has a "homeschool P.E." program (and my daughter also takes weekly Judo lessons there at the Y, which she loves. The Y has lots of great programs in general).

 

There's 4-H which tends to have a lot of homeschoolers. 4-H has quite a few different "clubs," my kids have tried a "cooking club" and a "wilderness club" before I decided 4-H was just too far for us to travel on top of all of our other weekly activities and commitments.

 

There's boyscouts/girl scouts- my daughter is the only homeschooler in her Girl Scouts group but still enjoys it.

 

Many zoos and museums have homeschool days and classes and programs.

 

Many state parks offer different science and nature programs, not necessarily geared toward homeschoolers, but still fun.

 

Many libraries have different programs, some geared toward homeschoolers and some not- my daughter really enjoys the book club she belongs to at our library.

 

There are various sports- you can do this through the schools perhaps or just through the county/town or however it works. I've been keeping an eye on the little league website to find a teeball league in my town for my son in the spring, for instance. Girls can join Little league, too, and there's soccer and so on.

 

We have a local "Council for the Arts" where my kids go to art camp each summer- I wish they had specific homeschool programs but so far they don't. Maybe you have an art center that does, though.

 

You can join or start a homeschool group (try meetup.com) and see if you can find one that's a fit for you, maybe they'd have co-op classes- not even necessarily formal ones but just fun ones here and there. Or maybe even a hobby group.

 

If s/he's really interested in a particular something that you're looking for an apprenticeship type of place for, search your community and see if you can send out a few feeler emails, you never know if you'll come across that homeschool friendly someone who says "sure, start visiting and let's see what happens."

 

There are gymnastics and dance studios, music shops that offer lessons, historical places that take volunteers who are teens, etc.

[Mallory]

I struggled with trying to find a group for years, through several moves and have finally decided that what works best for us is actually being a part of our community, not being a part of the homeschooling community.

 

We volunteer at our local food pantry 2x a week and it has opened up lots of opportunities for us (of course it is also a not for profit church, pregnancy center, and skating rink- so there are many other families involved and many homeschool ;))

 

They belong to scouts- again not a homeschool group, just the only pack in town.

 

For sports staying in touch with someone from public school seems to work best. For example baseball registration is right around the corner (I think ours is in Feb.) and they send out info to the school kids.

 

They also have do tumbling and enjoy that!