Wasnt sure if I should put this in the HS forum or over here. :lol: How many extra curricular activities are your kiddos involved with? How many weeknights each week do those activities take up? Looking at our fall schedule, it looks really really full... and I'm not sure we can go that full-force for the next 3 months. But maybe we can. And not all of it is an obligation, and in talking with hubby today we basically decided to determine whether or not to attend the activities available each day upon how the kiddos will probably handle it. Day by day kinda thing, with just a couple of real "obligated" weekly activities. Between a possible co-op, two park days, homeschool library day, scouts, and karate... there's not an evening in the week available for down time, family time, anything! But what do we drop? We'll have to guage it daily; at least that's the plan for now. I don't want to overschedule, but it's hard to see what's NOT really necessary at this point. What's your schedule like?
Sigh.... In the fall, Rachael and Phillip both play soccer, plus Rachael refs on Saturday AM's. Faythe does horseback riding. Phillip also does street hockey one day at the Rec Center, and Faythe will be taking a pottery class there at the same time. All three take piano lessons, Phillip is in AWANAS and Rachael works with the Kindergarten Sparkie class. We have youth group on Fridays, and church on Saturday evenings. We also go to Co-op on Tuesdays, but will only be there for 1.5 hours. (Rachael will be taking her Chem lab, and Faythe will do a gym class during that time!)
So... I guess what I mean is how many evenings during the week do you NOT have an activity? We have the option to take the kids to karate every day of the week. Of course we don't want to do that, but I'd love to get in at least 2 classes and 3 would be good from time to time. But we have two evenings taken up with scouts; thankfully, our AWANA group meets on Sunday evenings. :lol: It looks like Thursday will be our "no activities" day... but that's because two of the four during a month, I have an adult leaders scout meeting. LOL And now, with the new scout group, we're looking at having the parent planning meeting on the third Thursday. So that just leaves the fourth Thursday each month completely, totally free with no activity. And Saturdays in general. Is that enough? We also are planning co-op for Mondays, park days on Tuesdays and Fridays, and library story time on Wednesdays... which, again, leaves Thursday as the only day we have no activity - and that's during school hours. I had to sit and plan that, and it looks like we'll be shifting our schedule a few hours earlier to accomodate it. (We will be getting up at 9am, which is 2-3 hours earlier than we usually do. But, it's time for a change, at least a little bit.) So, with all the activities you listed above... do you have an evening free? Are most of those during the day activities?
Then I can't answer, because I don't know which day Phillip will have soccer practice, and Faythe riding lessons. As it is, we have: Mondays: free Tuesdays: Staff meeting @ church 9:30 AM Co-op 1-2:30 Steet Hockey/Pottery around 4:00-5:15 (Last year, Phillip had soccer practice 6:00-7:00) Wednesday: Piano Lessons 10-11:30 (closer to 11:45!) AWANAS (This is also the day I try to schedule Faythe's riding lessons) Thursday: Rachael has soccer practice, and Carl will be taking a college class, plus will be teaching a computer class at the church Friday: All three kids have youth group Saturday: Phillip plays soccer, Rachael refs in the AM, church in the PM Sunday: Rachael's soccer game
LOL Sorry to force you to break it down like that! :lol: Not really my intention, but thanks! So it looks like your schedule is as full as mine, with only one day free and clear... and the schedule isn't completely finalized. How old are your kiddos? YAY< thanks! :lol: Anyone else? Are we nuts?
Here's mine so far, and this does not incude whatever we decide to do at the library. Monday: DD11- Swim team practice 5:00-6:15 DS13- Boy Scouts 6:30-8:00 Tuesday: DD8- Ballet 4:00-4:45 DD11- Swim team practice 5:00-6:15 Wednesday: Awana- 6:00-8:00 for DD's 5, 8, and 11, DS13 is a game time leader, and DH has choir practice (possibly a morning book club at the library for ds13) Thursday: DD11- Swim team practice 5:00-6:15 DH has evening Praise team practice Friday: DS13-Guitar lesson (time TBD, but will be morning) Saturday- DS13- Soccer referee-9:00a-12:00pm Swim meets (not every Sat.) Sunday: 8:30-10:45 SS and Worship 6:00-7:00 Children's Choir for DD's 5, 8, and 11-youth for DS13 Swim meets (not every Sun.) I'm exhausted just thinking about it!
My kids are 15, 13, and 9. Our schedule is usually this full; we've cut out 4-H. OH!!! One more thing!!! Phillip will be doing Lego Robotics this year!!! Am not sure when that will meet, but it's important. He's a kid that loves to make things, and he's not happy with static buildings. He wants them to move and "do things". The group we're going to join is mostly hs'ed boys, many of which he already knows between hs'ing and AWANAS (a connection we didn't expect!). They're a good group of kids!
Wow. My kids seem so undersocialized compared to all of yours. The only extra-curricular activity the kids are currently in is 4-H. I meets during the day while dh is at work. We only have the one running & legal car right now, so he has to get a ride to work on 4-H days. With only one car, we can't really do any other activities during the day. We also really don't have time for activities in the evenings right now. We go to the library every Monday after dh gets home. That trip could take hours. Friday, we do the shopping, which does take hours. Once a week, dd has therapy. Plus there are the sessions with the psychiatrist every few months. Lately, dh has had physical therapy 2 days a week, plus follow-up appts with a Dr. They thought he had Carpal Tunnel, but they just found out it's actually a pinched nerve in his elbow. Since they just found out about the nerve a few days ago, I'm not sure how that will change his treatment. With all these appts with Drs & therapists, we just don't have time for extra-curriculars right now. Once we get the 2nd car running & legal, we'll hopefully be able to get the kids into more stuff.
Brandi, don't feel bad - besides scouts, and we did AWANA last year, this is really our first year to be full of activities like that. Maybe age makes a difference? My oldest is 10 and he is generally who I base our activitiy considerations around, for more reasons than one. Thanks, Jackie and Pam! I feel a lot better now. Most of our activities are NOT during the day really, and all of our evenings are taken up. I guess that's been my biggest concern, but we still have a couple of hours before hubby heads to work, and on his nights off he's around for family time later into the night as well. But it seems that the amount of things we have going on is about what you all do, even if the activities vary a little for age considerations. Maybe I should now hijack my own thread and ask: So, when do you get in "family time"? :lol:
I don't actually feel bad about it. Even if they're only in 1 structured social activity, I know they're still getting plenty of socialization. Ds plays with other kids at the library & both kids are on a first name basis with most of the librarians (it was all of them, but they just got some new ones) at the main branch & some at a few of the other branches, as well. They play with the neighborhood kids, play with their cousins, etc. They talk to people eveywhere we go, both adults & kids. my ds is very outgoing & won't be satisfied until everyone he meets knows his name & entire life story.:lol: seriously, we'll be at the store & he'll recognize the cashier, so he'll ask "Do you know my name?" Tehn, if they don't remeber it from the previous week, he'll tell them his name, his age, & that he's homeschooled (that one usually follows when they ask if he's starting kindergarten this year). Then he'll start talking about what he's learned in "school." Even if we had the time & money for more structured social stuff, I'd only let each of them do 2 total. That way, we wouldn't end upp overstructured.
They race bmx bikes once a week and go to practice once a week My dh races with them so it's my 15 dd, 12 dd, 4 ds and my 33 dh. Then my dd's play basket ball from around October onto March my oldest actually will play for the team and my 12 dd will red shirt and do stats for the team. She will play for the CYBA league in January-March. BMX racing is year round and we only get two weeks off for the league to tally up their points and get ready for the next year. That's just around the week before Christmas and until the first of the year. As for work shops they will be taking. we have a tentative schedule and will work out the kinks before next monday when classes start and they will just ride their bikes there to take the classes and come home in between.
I actually wrote an article on this topic, and had it published in "The Teaching Home" magazine a number of years ago <G>. It was called "Coming home, Staying home." And it was about how we homeschool moms tend to overschedule our children, thinking that we dont' want them to miss out on anything. SOmetimes I felt like I was a car-schooling mom more than a home-schooling one! I had four kids, and they were in worthy activities! They were active in the Suzuki music program. Which, had one private lesson a week, one group lesson a week, and one "theory class" a week - at different levels, so I had twelve half-hour classes to drag the kids to! My son was in Boy scouts, which I loved. He is an Eagle Scout, now. My middle daughter had art classes, my DH took guitar lessons for a while. Three of the four played soccer. My oldest was in gymnastics, and competing at the state level. My middle daughter had horseback riding lessons. We were in a homeschool coop. We were part of a homeschool group that met on first Fridays. I don't remember all the other stuff we did, but that wasn't all of it. We dropped out of almost everything. My son stayed with boy scouts, and the younger girls got active in 4H, and that was enough for us. We even dropped out of homeschool coop, because it took too much time away from our homeschool. How much is too much? That varies with each family. For me, I like being home. I don't like being in the car. The kids were getting cranky, and we didn't have family time together. That's when it's too much. Lorelei Nurturing creative young minds and wiggly bodies
Actually, I'm not sure I "overschedule". For everything we do, I can name a dozen we DON'T do. We quit 4-H, we don't do Scouts (and Phillip has asked about that!) Rachael would love to play basketball, Phillip wants to learn guitar and play baseball. I'm sure I can come up with more!
Looking at what a lot of you guys do, I can't imagine doing that many structured activities. It would be overscheduled for us. I wouldn't want to have to deal with getting the kids to activities every single day. Ususally, it's hard enough for us to fit in time with extended family as it is. We'd never get to see anyone if we had all those activities. That's just us, though. Everyone has their own idea of what overscheduled is for their family. I understand you guys don't feel you're overscheduled, but I couldn't do it.
I have 4 kids, so even at one activity each, we have something every day. DS13 is the only one who does more than one acitivity. He gets paid to be a soccer ref, and he can ride his bike to the games, as they are held at our HOA sportsplex. I don't consider Awana an extra-curricular activity. We would most likely be at church whether or not there was an Awana program. Like Jackie, we say no to many things. I won't even consider a co-op, because it would take us away from home for a whole day. We have no family anywhere near us, so fitting in time with extended family isn't an issue.
Wow. Maybe my kids are undersocialized. J/K. They talk to everyone and have friends over all the time. We don't always have extra money so they really don't get to do much. Their great grandma paid for them to have swim lesson this summer and other than that....not much. I thought about joining a co-op but really it wouldn't work for us. Plus I enjoy that I am not tied down to something. My 9yo ds does cub scouts Tuesday evenings, and he is taking guitar lessons from our neighbor (for free) but that isn't a set day and time. This fall my friend is doing group music lessons and she knows money is tight so she is going to buy all the material and I can pay her back slowly, and she isn't charging for the lessons. So twice a week my kids will have music lessons. Now that I think about it, they are in more than I think, but it wasn't this way last year. Maybe it's that they are getting older? My son is thinking about 4-h but I need to look into it more, such as meeting times and places, to see if it would work for us.
Most of our activities take place during the mornings ( with the exception of tennis, which is Fri night, but that will change in 2 weeks) ( Our week runs Sun -Thurs here) Sun- swim ( we usually try at get to pool by 8.30am, and leave around 10.30, as by then, its getting too hot to be out) Mon- Swim & library Library is only open on a Monday from 11-1, so we head over, usually only every 2 weeks ( or longer), as there is only 6 shelves of books currently to choose from...lol The mornings we have no library, we head to the pool. ( just for something different...lol) Tues- swim ( no lessons) Wed- horse riding lessons. During summer classes run from 4 am- 9am ( we usually ride at 8am), and winter, we may ride a little later in the morning. Thurs- swim Fri- Currently tennis at 7pm, but a new coach is starting, and we will be taking a morning lesson, not on our weekend)
Sigh...we have an activity every night except Saturdays and Sundays. And that will change a bit from October to March. My oldest is in gymnastics 3 nights a week. And the two nights that she's not in gymnastics, my middle is in Karate. My youngest's activities usually fall in there somewhere (she does gymnastics as well, but is about to change to dance, not sure how that is going to work!!!). We DO try as much as possible to continue to have dinner as a family. On the three nights my oldest is out, one of us sits with her when she comes home and has dinner and we try to spend time with just her after the youngers go to bed. Saturday and Sundays are our "family" days...during meet season, however, that will be difficult to do EVERY weekend. From October to March she has a potential of 12 meets - and in some months they're 3 weekends in a row. And some of them will be out of town (OH, NY, MD). We're hoping the weekends that they are out of town to try and make it a family trip/vacation for a day or two - like OH we can go to the creation museum in KY, NY - well, we can see NYC, MD - National Aquarium), that kind of stuff. It definitely gets harder as they get older. We've contemplated making breakfast our family meal time on the days when my oldest is in gymnastics. But...neither my husband and I are good at getting up early! LOL Does this help at all?
Here is our breakdown of activities. It has been this way since '06 , when we moved to Vegas, there is just so much to do here and our last place had nothing for kids to do. Monday- Free day except 2nd Monday of Month is HOA meeting (dh is President) Tuesday- Piano 9am, 30 mins ( dd13) Co-Op 10-2pm ( both dd's) Wednesday- Teen Advisory Council for Library 2:30-3:30 pm ( both dd's) Church Youth group 7-8:30 pm ( both dd's) 3rd Wed. of Month -Neighborhood Watch Meeting ( I am a block captain) 6pm Thursday- 10-2pm Co-Op ( both dd's) and I teach the 12:30-2pm class every Thursday. Drama 4:30-5:30 at Library ( 13 week program) Friday- Drum lessons 7pm ( dd11) at our house Anime meeting group for teens at Library 4pm-6pm ( both dd's) Saturday- Home Depot, Lowes, Michaels , Museum classes and Library Classes depending on which weekend we might have 3 classes on one day but none on another weekend. If we are free on a weekend that is when we might take a overnight trip with the girls. Sunday- nothing FREE!!! We have dinner together every day of the week. On nights we have classes or meeting its crockpot night ( so its ready early) or once a week ( usually Wednesday) we get take-out somewhere. Of course there is babysitting at least once a week, we have poker parties once a month ( rotate houses with the others in the group), I have Bunco once a month, sleepovers ( at least once a month) , weekend trips to state parks ( or lately some really cool ghost towns), golf ( dh takes the girls once a month, plus he plays one weekend a month or more) and anything else that pops up ( usually out of state visiters once a month , that is what happens when you live in Vegas ).
We still try to have dinner together every night. Sometimes dinner is a little later than I'd like. (I need more crock pot recipes!) My dh's job takes him away lots on weekends, but that can't be helped.
