I was just wondering, what extra-curricular activities are your children involved in? And if you don't mind posting their ages, too, that would be great. It can be anything... artistic, athletic, academic, etc etc... anything that gets them participating in something outside of the home (whether or not it involves other children... not worried about the "socialization" aspect ... just curious!) Starting in September, my 6 year old this year will be doing Tuesday evening Kid's Club at church, as well as Thursday evening Beavers (scouts). My 3 year old will be starting gymnastics this year. In the summer, 6yo plays soccer and 3yo will start that next summer also. Oh yeah, Sunday school at church on Sundays for both of them.
My DS, aged 5, did Upward Soccer last spring as well as gymnastics one day per week. My DD, aged 6, did gymnastics/dance one day per week. Both did AWANA and Sunday School/church. This semester, they'll both be in karate 2-3 days per week, piano one day per week, AWANA on Wednesdays, Sunday School/church on Sundays, and have our home school group play dates on Fridays. They'll be turning 6 and 7 in the next few months.
My 9 year old is in Boy Scouts, he started when he was 7, but they can start at 6. He played baseball at 5 and 6, and hated it, he's not a sports person (he gets it naturally, hubby and I aren't fans either). My 2 little ones (3 and 2) will be involved in scouts as well, since they do so many diverse things (camping, games, educational things), and we are considering 4H for them all right now.
well mine are older, but we too have a tuesday night kids club, only one teaches/leads class and one is IN one. We have Youth group on Thursday night.. another class wed night, Untill Soccer starts then they both ( 11 and 14) will go to soccer.
We have church on Sundays, Awana and Youth Group on Wednesdays and Elijah has guitar lessons before youth group on Wednesday.
My 15 year old plays softball in the spring and fall, attends youth group on Wednesdays and church Sundays. She also helps with VBS in the summer and with preschool Sunday School. She's going to be taking guitar lessons starting next month. She wants to play the drums too. My 13 year old attends youth group and church, plays basketball and helps with VBS in the summer. He's going to be starting guitar lessons next month too. My 8 year old does ballet, in the late summer/fall plays soccer, goes to kids club at church, attends Sunday School and church, and will be taking violin lessons starting next month.
Samantha is 12 and takes dance, hip hop, jazz and ballet. She usually goes twice a week but now preparing for a show she is going three to four times. She has been dancing since she was 8 and used to compete in drill team. She briefly did gymnastic and didn't like it. When she was 7 she played a season of basketball for the YMCA. She is really good at basketball and most sports she just didn't like the Y. Grace is 5 1/2 and just started dance a few months ago. She goes once a week and takes jazz, tap and ballet. They both go to sunday school at church and Samantha works in the nursery during the last service.
My dd's are going on 13 and 11. Twice a week is piano lessons , 30 mins. each day. Every Wenesday night is Young Women's classes at the LDS ward. Every other Saturday is at Lowes for the free woodworking class/craft. When we don't have Lowes then we are at Michaels craft store for their classes. Soon on Tuesdays, the girls will be taking Cake Decorating classes at Michaels as well. Starting in Sept. the library will start classes that run for 9 weeks and that is usually an Art class or Drama. They have an Art Gallery showing at the end of classes when they take Art or they put on a play at the end if it is the Drama class. Once a month my oldest attends the Teen Advisory group at the library and helps put books away , hangs posters or other work that needs to be done. Plus babysitting is in the mix.. usually 3 jobs a week ( both girls go to the same house because each family has 2 or more kids and the girls split the money 50/50).
Ems is 10 1/2. She takes piano on Tuedays and two dance classes on Fridays. They are back to back. One class is ballet and the other is lyrical. We also have church functions and activites. We occasionally go to quilting class but only if we are finished with school. Ems used to be in painting but the cost was to much with everything else and the teacher was getting older and didn't seem to be mentally present all the time. So we removed Ems from the class.
dd1 is 5.5yrs and she does, swimming lessons trampolining lessons horseriding lessons home education pe group ds and dd2 aged 2.5yr and 9 months both do swimming lessons as well
So far the only extra curricular outside of the home has been our library group that meets weekly (both hs and ps kids) but hopefully this year we'll be able to add more, I'm hoping when we move that I can put dd in ballet and ds in karate or maybe girl/boy scouts (respectively) or both! Maybe piano lessons too. dh is worried that I want to do too much and right now, being nearly an hour away from those types of things, I would say yes, but if we move to within minutes! Look out cuz I'm signing us up! (((I'll probably have a post around Dec. saying 'oh my gosh, what have I done? I wish we didn't sign up for all of this stuff' rofl!)))
We are located in the center of the city so Emma's dance and piano aren't more than 5 minutes away. If we catch the light it is faster. Her painting class was about 25 minutes away. Mainly because of traffic. This was the furthest extra activity for us.
My DSD is 7 and she did swimming, tumbling and karate this summer. She wants to try out for the children's theatre musical this fall, and that would take up a lot of time for a while so she'd have to stop karate, swimming and tumbling. But we are OK with that because I think she should try whatever she wants now so she can choose something to specialize in later. She briefly tried ballet/jazz but didn't like the ballet part. She is also interested in soccer, but we have said she can try what she wants but she can't do everything. Mostly we want her to pick a few things and specialize in them instead of taking a lot of classes and never mastering anything. She said out of everything she wants to do singing and dancing—so there you go! She is also going to start a class at church.
My 4 and 5 yo ds do Cubby Bears at church on Wednesday, Sunday School and Children's Church on Sunday, Also they go swimming with their friends on Wednesday afternoons, and we are thinking about doing Karate lessons for the both of them if we can find a teacher willing to take both children.
Wow -- I'm amazed at how busy you ladies are! haha! We live in the "boonies" and haven't found much to become involved in: DS 5 years old -- rodeo once or twice a month, and signing up for 4H (Clover Kids)
Our kids go to church on Sunday, children's choir on Sunday evenings, Pioneer Girls (kinda like Girl Scouts) on Wednesday nights, and Ladies' Bible study (we have a homeschool class) on Tuesday mornings. We haven't done any not-church extra things yet.
We are involved in 4-H (will be dd's 3rd year, ds's 1st & ds's mini) they all have been going to the meetings anyway, held 1x per month (about 9 months out of the year) We are involved in a homeschool co-op that meets 8 times in the fall & 8 in the spring, every other week. This may be our last year, I'm on the board and have constantly tried to get the numbers reduced but the lady in charge will not listen, I'm tired of it. I'm almost 95% certain that I'm ready for a change. (there are about 20 kids per class and I feel that is WAY too many for a homeschool co-op) We attend a Wednesday evening Bible Study and fellowship dinner every week. I can do field trips twice a month with a group, but pick and choose depending upon location, price and interest. Usually do about 1 a month. That's what we do here. Kristine
This is the school calendar, summer changes everything: Homeschooling boys 12 and 11 (12 year old does all these events and 11 year old does most of them): Sunday: church am, church pm Monday: Parkday in the afternoon; Boy Scouts at night Tuesday: (1st and 3rd Tues. of month) book club & writing club (two different groups, same meeting location) afternoon Wednesday: maybe church pm - not sure what the calendar is at church yet Thursday:homeschool band Friday: once or twice a month church fun event Saturday: often a Scout event, but that all depends Most everything is close by, say 15 minute drive one way. The only thing that is longer is the Tuesday activities.
My eldest is involved in gymastics (twice a week 2 hours a day). My middle is doing an indoor soccer program 1ce a week. My youngest does gymnastics 1ce a week during one of my oldest's sessions. My oldest and middle are involved in a book club once a month with kids their age (that's free!) We are starting with a new co-op this fall which is unbelievably cheap for 3 kids (140 for the entire year). This year I'll be adding a weekly trip to a local library (or actually, a biweekly trip on on-co-op days).
