What is your homeschool group going to do next year?

[Laura in OH]

I am on the steering committee of our homeschool group and we are about to plan next year's meetings. We meet once a month from Sept - May and plan to have as many of them outside at local parks as we can. What does your group do? Do you bring speakers in? Do you have topics for your meetings? If so, how did you come up with those topics?

 

Thanks for your input. I just don't want our group to get "stale" or not really help anybody...

[cara]

Hoping this links right, nothing is set in stone yet, but this is what we have planned to do. Last year was our first year and it was boring and we didn't like what we did, and we were motivated. So we decided to change things up this year and do more.

 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Orleans-LA/Eastbank-Homeschoolers-New-Orleans-La/103561192248#!/notes/eastbank-homeschoolers-new-orleans-la/activities-for-2010-2011-school-year/134752899889860

[bairnmama]

We haven't had our yearly planning mtg yet, but we do have a general schedule and standing events that happen every year so here's the basic yearly stuff:

 

We meet from 10-2 once a week from Aug-May and most of those days are at parks like you mentioned. One mtg is a general play for the kids and mom's time to talk. One works on Presidential Fitness requirements. One is a 1st Friday event at a local skating rink. The owner lets us skate for a discount and we hold public speaking (show & tell for the littles), chess club, kid's crafts, student council mtg, and honor society mtg on that day.

 

We try to have at least one main event a month:

Field Day - usual relay races, games, contests, cook-out with ribbons for prizes

Historical Character Day - around Halloween where each student researches a person from history, dresses up like them, delivers a 1st person presentation and everyone tries to guess who they are

Sand Sculpture Day - my town is near the beach

Art Fair

Science Fair

International Day - research a country, do a display and presentation, and cook a food from that country to share

Camp Don Lee - a whole day at a local camp for a team building challenge course for the olders and a craft/natural day for youngers

Christmas Crafts

Valentine's Party - everyone makes their own box to hold valentines and they get judges in age group categories

Thanksgiving Celebration - traditional Thanksgiving meal (most years) with games and fellowship

 

Every family is in charge of at least one event during the year and can do with it whatever they wish. Our group is not large either. Last year we had about 10 families, but we had a BLAST!

 

HTH

[bairnmama]

Oh... and our student council plans field trips that happen on days other than group meeting days. No one is required to attend, but the option is there. We've done lighthouse tours, plantation tours, theme parks, ice skating, aquarium with a behind the scenes tour, etc.

[Laura in OH]

We only meet for a few of hours once/month and spend some of the time in teaching mode and the rest in fellowship. We have childcare for the little ones and play time for older children -- although sometimes someone volunteers to do a community service project with the olders. We really want a group that encourages the whole family to attend, but we're sure our dh's don't want to sit around a talk about potty-training, etc. :) Last year we used chapters from Educating the Wholehearted Child (by Sally Clarkson) as meeting topics. Each member of the steering committee ran one meeting. You could bring in a speaker, have a round-table, or anything else to communicate the idea to the group. That worked great but we'd like to come up with something different this year. Does anyone else have a group that tries to teach their membership about homeschooling?

 

Thanks!