Extracurriculars in covid times, how are you dealing?

[mommyoffive]

How are you dealing with extracurriculars during covid?  This is normally the time I am signing up for everything and setting our schedule for the year.

What is running near you?

What is not running around you this year?

What are you participating in?  

What are you skipping?

Are you doing anything different this year?

[catz]

Well this is easy for us.  Pretty  much nothing is happening in person.  Starting to dig around for online options for my 16 year old teen who is usually doing theater/music related stuff 5+ days a week. I want to see numbers trending down for a few weeks  but that's probably a pipe dream through the holidays at least.  The teen as done a few outdoor, spaced, masked things with a youth theater and we will consider those types of things as they may come up.  She hasn't done driver's ed yet, I think some local places are doing that online so that seems like a good first choice for her. 

[*Jessica*]

We usually have an outside the house activity every weekday except for Tuesdays.  We’re not doing any of them this year.  I think they are all open now, but I’m not comfortable with other people’s behavior so we won’t participate.  No music lessons, no exercise classes, no homeschool group.  It will be a lonely, but probably very productive, year!  

[barnwife]

We have never done such things (well, swimming lessons in the summer). This was the year I was going to look into dance for DD8 and karate for DS10. Except that's not happening now (even if they were open, we wouldn't). Add in the fact that I am weeks away from giving birth and...yeah, guess it's another year of socializing with your siblings, kids!

[SKL]

• Horse riding has been back since mid-May - masked.  Kid2 goes there 4-5 days a week.
• TKD has been back since early June? - masked.  All 3 of us attend, usually 1x per week.
• High school sports conditioning had been going on in July, then they stopped it, now they are starting it again, at least partway ... unless they change it again.  Kid1 has been attending cross country and soccer practices.  They have to wear masks to & from but not during practice.
• I've been making Kid2 run when she doesn't have practices.  She doesn't want to, but we can't have more months of sitting in bed all day.
• Marching band camp was supposed to start last week, was cancelled, but now they say they will bring it back ....
• Both of my kids are going to weekly lessons (in person) with Kid1's trumpet teacher for now.
• AHG - theoretically we are working on individual badges until we can meet again, and I'm not sure when that is going to happen.

[SKL]

I should note that our rec center is open.  We have gone there for some swimming and running.  They have some other activities offered, but we don't do them at this time.

The gymnastics places are open.  Right now we are not active in them, but I am going to look into options for Kid1 and see if any are a fit for her.  I know cheer places are open too.

[Tenaj]

Soccer practice has been happening for my teens since the beginning of July.  I am fully expecting the season to be cancelled any moment.  Just heard the big ten has cancelled football.  If colleges aren't playing fall sports I don't see how the high schools go forward.

[kokotg]

My 17 and 14 year olds would normally be doing youth orchestra (and the 17 year old just auditioned for a wind symphony, too), but both are on indefinite hold right now. They're both still doing lessons (their wind instruments and piano) online. They'd also be volunteering at the library and doing a couple of different D&D groups, but none of that is happening, either (there's been some talk of restarting D&D outside in a small group, but it hasn't happened yet, and I'm not sure if we'll be comfortable with it if it does). My 14 year old also has a drawing club he used to go to that's not happening. I might sign him up for an online theater class. My 7 year old would normally be playing baseball; it's happening locally, and I thought about it for half a second until I remembered that he's managed to get lice TWICE from baseball over the past couple of years and decided we'd just wait and see what spring looks like after all. We had also been planning on starting him in piano this year, but I don't want him doing virtual lessons when he's just starting, so we'll hold off on that. 

[prairiewindmomma]

We are doing nothing. Most are still going on either virtually or in adapted manners, but it seems irresponsible to expose ourselves. Our friends feel differently—and have had to deal with issues as a result. (Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, as my college student says. Most haven’t had to be hospitalized, but some have lingering issues.) 

Fwiw, no schools are meeting in person this fall here, and I know of only one university that is having classes. They are a small private technical school and they can do classes <10 people to meet the state guidelines for gatherings.

Edited August 10, 2020 by prairiewindmomma

[Arcadia]

My kids’ recreational tennis class has resumed in June. Their recreational German classes switch to online in March and continues being online. Our sports and recreational centers are all hosting small groups summer day camps.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Arcadia
Typing errors

[prairiewindmomma]

I need to amend my statement. My dd reminds me that she is still doing tech stuff online. They moved everything to Zoom and are using Tinkercad.

[kbutton]

We are going to do a little tutoring in person and music lessons in person. That's it. Both activities masked and with people who are being super careful. 

On the fence about starting the local vo-tech program. They are starting with a hybrid model and then re-evaluating. For the hybrid time, his class would likely have about 10 people in it, one day per week, all masked, in a very large room. We'd skip the bus. I can't imagine a safer plan that also allows for the fact that the kids need their hands-on classes, but we may still pass.

 

[CinV]

My son is a wrestler, and his club has been up and running, first at coach's houses and now in a rented gym space, since they closed schools here in March. It was limited at first to just the team members, but has grown at this point to have 60+ wrestlers, youth and high school. We are one of the top teams in the state in our division, and there is and always has been a single week break between the season and "off season". In this sport, it's keep going or get left behind, and my son doesn't want to give it up and I won't ask it of him.

[JennyD]

My kids will continue to do music lessons through Zoom.  We will not be doing any group sports, Scouts, music, volunteering, or classes in person for a long, long time.

We're away from home right now so I don't know what's open and what's closed.  Doesn't really matter to me one way or the other, though.

 

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by JennyD

[Loowit]

We dropped a number of our activities a few years ago, but if we were still involved, the activities would be cancelled.  There are no fall sports this year in recreational or schools.

The boys are still in scouts, but their meetings are online.  Sadly, the last two week my boys were the only scouts that showed up.  The troop has talked about doing some hikes and camping.  Hiking could work, but camping would be difficult.  They would need to have a lot of area to spread out, no sharing campsites or tents outside of households, and could only do group activities that are socially distanced.  The latest idea pitched was going rafting, but not sure how we could do that safely.  Most of the troop aren't good at masking, so my boys don't really want to go to in person thing anyway.

[Jentrovert]

We would normally be doing rec gymnastics. Everything seems to be open as normal here (there's not much even normally) although gymnastics is doing extra cleaning of surfaces and limiting number of classes. There is little to no distancing, no masks. 

(Regarding masking, here's the policy: you can wear a mask if you choose and they will make sure no one is bullied for wearing a mask.) 

They are touting the cleaning of surfaces (and, indeed, they do a great job of this even pre-covid) but the kids are following each other in close succession, breathing heavily. Unless you're always the first person on an apparatus the whole time, you're sucking in droplets from everyone who has been through there.

Sigh. We all really, really hate to miss it. The kids would prob be too hot in masks; it's very warm in there through November or so. 

Numbers have remained low here this whole time, despite people carrying on as usual. Would we be just fine doing this activity? Likely yes. Things can change so quickly, though, and we are continuing to see my parents regularly - I would constantly be wondering if we were pre- or asymptomatic. 

When the heat breaks (late Sept) we'll camp and other things. 

[hjffkj]

Basically everything is running just not as normal.  The only thing we participate in that isn't running is our home school group, which I run and have decided not to hold it this year.  I would actually love to hold it in a modified way but there are people who last year came to group with a kid with an active illness or who had a fever or was throwing up the night before.  So, I don't see a way to run it without inviting those families back without burning bridges so I'm just avoiding it.  I will likely reach out to a few families in it privately to do nature walks and such.

The way things have changed.  The kids won't be going back to the kung-fu school this year.  I'm not 100% opposed to them taking class in the school but we do not pay so I don't want my kids taking a spot on the floor that could potentially go to a paying customer.  Dh will just be teaching them at home.  The biggest downfall to this is that my oldest misses out on assisting in classes and off the floor.  Last year he was really making huge improvements in his leadership skills and I don't know a way to foster that at home.

Dd's is starting violin lessons soon and that will either be in our yard or in our home, whichever her teacher is comfortable with. 

Ds's guitar lessons are still up in the air.  He could do them via Zoom but when this all started he didn't want to but now that he's taken a different class over Zoom he may feel differently.

I was looking to start my oldest dd at a ballet school because she is looking for a more professional atmosphere but they haven't announced what classes will look like yet so we are still waiting on that.

[Pintosrock]

Here, everything is carrying on as normal. So, we're down to virtual music lessons. Dubious quality over Zoom, but we didn't want to become complete hermits.

[teachermom2834]

Dd is going to the dance studio five days a week. It is just one small studio with one class at a time so not lots of people coming and going. All of her classes are less than five kids and they have room to spread out (if they remember to). Masks are encouraged but not required. Over the course of a week she might be exposed to six or seven different people there for up to two hours at a time. My dd is very conscientious about her mask and keeps her distance even when the other kids bunch up.  I don't feel fantastic about this setup but we are taking the risk for now. It seems worth it for the benefit. Nothing here is shut down at all even though we have alot of community spread. This is the one thing we are doing. I'm pretty comfortable with the setup but I'm not comfortable with the other folks there. Anti-maskers, deniers, etc etc. This is the first week of a full schedule so we will see how it goes. 

Everything here is going on as normal pretty much but we aren't participating in church or homeschool activities at all. My 17 yo ds is working at a grocery store and that is his extracurricular for now. 

 

[rebcoola]

We'll take it case by case so far only.horseback riding and swim lessons are running.  We are doing both because we are comfortable with the setup. We usually do summer swim team. 

  MDD is doing a children's theater production but it's all on zoom.  I can't wait to get to recording week and and showtime to see how it works.  

Gymnastics comes back in phase 2 but we won't be returning that soon. Not sure about Muay Thai but we won't be going to that anytime soon unless they move outdoors.  

Edited August 10, 2020 by rebcoola

[2squared]

55 minutes ago, CinV said:

My son is a wrestler, and his club has been up and running, first at coach's houses and now in a rented gym space, since they closed schools here in March. It was limited at first to just the team members, but has grown at this point to have 60+ wrestlers, youth and high school. We are one of the top teams in the state in our division, and there is and always has been a single week break between the season and "off season". In this sport, it's keep going or get left behind, and my son doesn't want to give it up and I won't ask it of him.

I have a passionate wrestler, and wrestling will be the last activity we will drop. He’s a rising 11th grader, top ranked in the state in our division. I don’t know that he will wrestle in college, but he does want to create the best opportunity he can for himself which means he needs to keep moving forward.  Our team has mats set up in a shed outside of town (rural farming community). Ds just started attending tournaments, wish we had him competing all summer long. We will probably be looking at a club in the big city before long, especially if the high school season doesn’t happen. Other than that:

Football -  practice without pads in summer. High school season moved to spring but will practice in the fall.

Baseball - Abbreviated summer season, but will have a fall season

Softball - Abbreviated summer season, will practice in fall

Volleyball - Waiting to hear if practice or JO Club for fall. High school season was moved to spring 

Cross Country - Dd considering joining for fall high school season since volleyball was moved to spring  

Weightlifting/Strength training - weight room was open all summer and will be in fall again

Basketball - Dd will play and practice if available in the fall. Nothing was available in the summer. 

[MEmama]

XC started here. Last week they met in groups of 10, this week the entire team will meet at the same time. Everyone is spaced out (and obviously practice is outside) and masked except during “ vigorous” exercise. No carpooling to practice is allowed, and no getting there early or staying late to congregate. I 100% trust the coach to enforce all safety protocols. 
 

I'm happy for DS who desperately needs this for his mental health, but also nervous. If it were just about any other activity we wouldn’t even consider it. 

[hs03842]

-

Edited December 9, 2020 by JoyKM

[Guest]

DD didn't go back to cheer, and while she had wanted to try out to be the CC mascot, sports aren't happening this fall there. . We just did a Skype a Scientist session with our teen science club, so that is sort of going, but the hands on, fun project stuff isn't happening yet. DD has gotten the information about Beta Club, which will be virtual, but I don't know if she is going to bother. Clubs are not allowed to meet at her CC. She's doing piano online. Extracurriculars are just plain going to be thin for her senior year. 

[SKL]

2 hours ago, JanOH said:

Soccer practice has been happening for my teens since the beginning of July.  I am fully expecting the season to be cancelled any moment.  Just heard the big ten has cancelled football.  If colleges aren't playing fall sports I don't see how the high schools go forward.

Our admin says we have no expectation of having an actual competition season, especially for contact sports.  But (a) they want our kids to be in condition when/if the season starts, and (b) they are lobbying to move the fall season to spring for this year.

[ScoutTN]

Piano is mostly in-person for Dd, but can be virtual if necessary. This is the only indoor thing we have done, so far.

AHG is on, meeting only outdoors. Scouts meets tonight, outdoors, but we haven't heard about calendar for the fall. Based on the spring, I don't expect much. We are planning to create opportunities for Ds to learn and advance apart from troop activities, partnering with another family or two and taking advantage of council offered activities.

Our private, outdoor pool is open evenings and weekends now, just weekends after Labor Day. Mostly distanced, obviously no masks.

Fishing is happening! 😄🐠🎉

Flag football is on, with some adaptations. Same for the after school outdoor athletics ds' school is offering. 

Horseback riding is on. By definition distanced, small barn. 

Church youth small groups are on, outside for the fall, Zoom later in the year. 

Church is real or Zoom. We have just been Zooming. 

[mamakelly]

I have some friend's whose soccer programs are running again. But other than that, literally nothing is running. My son is a bowler and the bowling alley was open for 3 weeks, but now it's closed again. Honestly, I'll be surprised if it survives this. 

[medawyn]

We're home.  I'm more or less ignoring every e-mail I get from previous extra curricular activities.  There are lots of ways people in my area are working to get around regulations re: masking and social distancing requirements, so I'm not even trying.  I also don't want my kids to get invested in an activity and have the rug pulled out from under them in a few weeks.

We have two extras that translated very well to Zoom/online platforms, so those have continued without interruption.  That'll be it this year.

[AmandaVT]

Tennis was able to restart in May, I think, maybe early June. It's kind of the ultimate socially distanced sport since one player is about 80 ft from the other and his coach will only take 2 students at once for lessons right now. Piano is over FaceTime and is going well. It's nice not to have to drive an hour each way! Spanish is also online and is going well. Our church school/youth group is online.  One of our homeschool friends is hoping to get a small group together for theater - if she does, we'll probably do that too unless cases start going up in our area. We had 3 new cases in the state today and haven't had any big spikes since early June. Everyone is holding their collective breath to see what happens when schools reopen in a couple of weeks.

[itsheresomewhere]

We have nothing now. The only activity that is sort of going on is TKD everything else is cancelled.  But it is either online or if you make a very limited reservation for a in person class. We could do that if we could get one for all of us but the negatives are not worth it to us.  No sparring, no cardio, no self defense touching and the studio is requiring masks.  While that normally would not bother me, they kept the studio above 80 ( no air movement at all in that place) and two of us couldn’t breath well in that heat along with exercising. The ER bill when we pass out will not be worth it. I know some will see this as anti-mask but we are not.  Figure skating will not open until next year.  4H is online only right now but for what my kids are in, it is really hard to do a zoom meeting for. 

Edited August 10, 2020 by itsheresomewhere

[mommyoffive]

52 minutes ago, AmandaVT said:

Tennis was able to restart in May, I think, maybe early June. It's kind of the ultimate socially distanced sport since one player is about 80 ft from the other and his coach will only take 2 students at once for lessons right now. Piano is over FaceTime and is going well. It's nice not to have to drive an hour each way! Spanish is also online and is going well. Our church school/youth group is online.  One of our homeschool friends is hoping to get a small group together for theater - if she does, we'll probably do that too unless cases start going up in our area. We had 3 new cases in the state today and haven't had any big spikes since early June. Everyone is holding their collective breath to see what happens when schools reopen in a couple of weeks.

Wow 3 cases in the state! that is amazing 

[Meriwether]

We have chosen to see three families socially. Those three families overlap well with my kids and each other in regards to friendship. I teach kids in two of the families Spanish with one of my kids. I will teach a class with kids from a different combination of two families with another of my kids. TKD Districts and Tournament of Champions were both cancelled for 2020. My kids and husband would very likely have won a number of District titles and at least three of them would likely have competed for World titles this summer. All tournaments have been cancelled through 2020, so my daughter's last season while living at home has been truncated if not eliminated altogether. We are disappointed. Classes are happening but are limited to once per week with no sparring. Volunteering isn't going to happen since the kids who volunteered did it in school and kid program settings. Band at the school isn't happening at this point. That will make life easier. Ds13 has been taking 3 or 4 band classes at the local school the past few years. He'll gain a lot of time at home if he isn't doing that. AWANA isn't happening. Piano lessons aren't happening.

[Shoeless]

Our extracurriculars are back up and running, but we are not participating because they are only providing "hygiene theater" and not really doing anything to help control spread of Covid among the kids or staff.   We're in Texas where the positivity rate is 21%, the highest it's ever been.  

Edited August 10, 2020 by MissLemon

[chiguirre]

My dd's major activities were choir and string orchestra. Choir is obviously cancelled. The string orchestra was a homeschool group and they said they won't enforce the mask mandate or space out seating, so that's a hard pass. Her Sea Scout ship does meet virtually but they haven't gone sailing since last fall. The CC clubs will be meeting online this fall so I hope they're doing some fun things. Dd seems to be okay with dropping choir and orchestra. She's disappointed that she'll miss her senior year, but she's busy making plans for after high school. She's spent a bunch of time "future shopping" this summer. This is her googling around about possible careers and grad schools, but it keeps her busy and makes her happy. She's come up with some really interesting, off the beaten path ideas. I'm glad that she's managed to focus her mental energy there rather than mourning what she's lost out on.

 

[Tenaj]

4 hours ago, SKL said:

Our admin says we have no expectation of having an actual competition season, especially for contact sports.  But (a) they want our kids to be in condition when/if the season starts, and (b) they are lobbying to move the fall season to spring for this year.

This is what I'm hoping for except how will it affect kids who play multiple sports?  So they switch soccer to the spring which is great, what happens to baseball, push it to the summer?  I can see maybe basketball starts in Feb/Mar.  Soccer April/May Baseball in the summer?   My boys play all three and in a lot of smaller Ohio schools, it would be common for kids to play all three.   Our school wouldn't be able to field teams without the boys playing all the major sports.

[SKL]

8 minutes ago, JanOH said:

This is what I'm hoping for except how will it affect kids who play multiple sports?  So they switch soccer to the spring which is great, what happens to baseball, push it to the summer?  I can see maybe basketball starts in Feb/Mar.  Soccer April/May Baseball in the summer?   My boys play all three and in a lot of smaller Ohio schools, it would be common for kids to play all three.   Our school wouldn't be able to field teams without the boys playing all the major sports.

Yeah, my kid is involved in various sports every season as well.  I guess we'll cross that bridge when (if) we come to it.  For now, I am just glad they are going to have practices to keep the kids moving and thinking.

[Terabith]

We actually joined a choir we wouldn't normally have.  Normally, my youngest would have sung in the school choir.  We're doing virtual school, no choir.  The incredibly highly regarded children's choir in our area that usually has a number of high intensity performances that she would have dreaded has shifted to practices via Zoom and small group practices outdoors a few times.  Their final performances will be virtual ones.  She the last age to join the non-crazily intense choir, so this seemed like a good opportunity to sing, to gain new skills, and to participate in a cool activity in a fairly safe way without a lot of the pressure that would normally be there of a million performances.  (She hates publicly performing.)  

There may be an outdoor performance for parents done in a socially distanced manner, with kids standing ten feet from each other outdoors.  Maybe, in the spring.  

[slackermom]

The only in-person outside activity for my 16yo is Irish dance. The dance school has made a lot of adjustments.  No team classes. Fitness classes will stay on zoom, as will some mid-week choreography review classes. They all wear masks the whole time during in-studio classes, except to take water breaks, which are more frequent due to dancing in masks. They have a bigger studio space, and smaller, shorter classes, with each dancer having their own 10x10 square for the class. At one point during class they space out along the edges and each dancer is given their solo opportunity to work the center of the floor with everyone else out of their way. 

We would normally attend competitions at least once a month, with 500-1000 dancers in attendance. All of that is definitely off the calendar for now.

I am hoping to sign my kid up for some painting classes at a local art college this fall, which they announced would be online, but they haven't opened registration yet. Normally those classes would be full well in advance.