Do you belong to a homeschool group in real life?

Discussion in 'Homeschooling' started by JosieB, Jun 30, 2010.

  1. JosieB

    JosieB Active Member

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    Another discussion got me to thinking. I like to poll the people here LOL so do you meet with a homeschool group in real life?

    What kind? Co-op classes? Play group? Parents meeting? Field trip group? Something else?

    How often do you meet with these groups?

    Are you in the city or out in the boonies or somewhere in between?

    _____________________

    We belong to a play group that meets weekly in the summer, 1st and 3rd weeks during school year.

    We also belong to a parents group (no kids) that meets monthly during the school year.

    AAAAAAND LOL Starting in Aug, we'll go to co-op classes weekly-Dec, then we'll re-evaluate co-op classes and hopefully drop them....

    We live in the boonies
     
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  3. cmreed4822

    cmreed4822 New Member

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    We tried the Friday co-op thing, but it didn't really work for us because our two boys were very young at the time. So right now we are not in any group, but I know a lot of homeschooling families and would like to co-op with a few families when my kids are a little older.
     
  4. DogwoodMom

    DogwoodMom New Member

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    We did an informal pre-school co-op last year with 3 other families. It was fun for the kids, and it was nice to get out of the house. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it met on Wednesdays, which I felt broke up my week. She also had ballet on Tuesday mornings.

    My daughter will be starting kindergarten this Fall, and we have joined a Classical Conversations co-op. CC meets on Fridays, which I like, because then our at-home academics can flow Monday-Thursday. My brain just works better this way. Her ballet will meet on Monday evenings this Fall, so my husband will take her. That works out good for me too, because I'll have two smaller ones at home by then.

    We live in the country, but pretty close to a fairly large town/smallish city.

    Michelle
     
  5. Meg2006

    Meg2006 New Member

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    I live in a "medium" type of city, approximately 11,000 people here, and I know NO ONE who does homeschool here and most of the groups I know are 30+ miles away (which is too far and our work schedules definately wont allow for it right now. :/ I would just like to meet up with some parents and have a sort of "get together playgroup" sometimes, you know?
     
  6. DawnEtech14

    DawnEtech14 New Member

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    We do not belong to any right now, do not really know of any around here, and haven't really looked into it, since we will be moving, but may check into it once we move.
     
  7. heartsathome

    heartsathome New Member

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    I actually co-lead a homeschool group called Hearts at Home. We are different than most groups in that we are as much for the moms as we are for the children. We meet every Friday for park days and/or field trips, do holiday parties together, outreaches, moms nights out, Bible Studies, child care swap, etc. We also do baby showers and provide meals for each other in times of need.

    We have about 25 families. We "interview" moms before they join because we have learned some people just label themselves Christians.

    I love our group! We tried a co-op weekly the first semester of last year, but it was too much too soon. We will be doing a monthly learning day for our group this coming year. We are just over a year old.
     
  8. kbabe1968

    kbabe1968 New Member

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    We live in the suburbs of a major city.

    20 mins one direction, you're downtown in a big city. 20 minutes another direction and you're practically in Amish Country. :)

    We have a lot of loose coops that do field trip type things...but no class type stuff.

    AND we go to an official coop that teaches Art, Music, Gym and Science (younger grades do a Kindergarten type thing, and older grades do Speech, Writing, etc...). We love it. It's every OTHER week, so it doesn't take too much from our time at home. It covers things that we don't normally do. The parent's are the teachers, so the costs are cheap, cheap cheap. I pay $170 for a whole year for three kids. This year I'm teaching the 1st & 2nd Grade Book Study and Art Classes. I'm really psyched b/c we're doing an "around the world" theme that goes with our MFW curricula at home. :)

    It's been a good experience, and if I were to shop around to fill those gaps it would cost A LOT more money. :) I'm happy. My kids are too.
     
  9. JosieB

    JosieB Active Member

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    I live in the boonies and was thinking I'd have to drive to one of the two big towns (30min-1 hour away) we're between for any homeschool groups and I was surprised to find several near me. We're 15 minutes away from ANYTHING.

    *Co-op is about 20 mins away
    *Playgroup is about 15 minutes away usually but a member offered up to have it at her home cause she has a pool so it's about 20 minutes away now too
    *Parents group is about 30 minutes away but it's worth it (to me) for a led discussion about homeschooling each month. They also co-ordinate field trips.

    There are at least 3 more that meet within 15-30 minutes from my home.
     
  10. JosieB

    JosieB Active Member

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    That's how our co-op classes are. I paid $45 for both my kids to take 3 classes each.
     
  11. rmcx5

    rmcx5 New Member

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    We live in coastal Virginia. There are lots of homeschoolers in the area. Our family is involved in a co-op of about 50 families (130-ish kids nursery -grade 12) that meets at our church for "extras"....not core curriculum....more things like PE, Art, science/history units, etc. We tried another homeschool enrichment group this year (for extra fun things like Field Day, etc...) but it was NOT a good fit for our family. So we don't plan to participate with it next year. Our co-op group plus other church activities (plus sports) are more than enough for us at this point. Our co-op is $20 per family per year. The church donates the use of the building and we try to limit costs whenever possible. Some classes have a small fee like $5 or $10 per 8 week session for supplies (like the cooking classes for food, etc).

    We participated in some park days when we first moved here 3 years ago but the kids sort of outgrew the group and it changed too....plus now they have friends and would rather just have specific playdates at the park.
     
  12. sloan127

    sloan127 Active Member

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    We tried a group our first year and decided it was not a good fit for us.
     
  13. crazymama

    crazymama Active Member

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    Nope, no groups around here, but we are more independant anyway.
     
  14. Autumnleavz

    Autumnleavz New Member

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    We have our co-op, p.e. group and scouts (soon to be adding band to that list). Right now we're not very far from everything, but soon we'll be moving a little further away so we'll have to be driving further, probably about an hour each way for most things. :)

    btw...wanted to add that we only did p.e. before when we lived that far away, but that was when ds was wanting to go back to ps JUST because he wanted/needed to be around other kids. So I consider that big drive about 3x a week to be the trade off for hs'ing the kiddos. :)
     
  15. KrisRV

    KrisRV New Member

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    we are on our own.
     
  16. gizzy

    gizzy New Member

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    There are some groups, but we dont belong to anything. Sometimes we run into each other (usually anyone at the park with kids during "school hours" for PS is a dead-ringer for a homeschooler.).

    We do alot of stuff on our own though. Park days, Field Trips.
     
  17. Minthia

    Minthia Active Member

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    I recently found a group that I thought would be a good fit but there is a lady in it that lives a few miles from me and she won't stop calling me and she always wants to get together outside of the group because our sons are the same age. She is nice and all, but I am starting to feel harassed with all the calls! I am thinking about dropping out because of her, but I am sure she still won't stop calling. We don't do classes or anything just park days and a few field trips and a week camping trip in Sept where we have classes and stuff. I like that it's free (other than paying for the field trips and camping) and I dont' have to teach anything because there are no classes, just get the kids together to play and they even have moms night out!
     
  18. Shelley

    Shelley New Member

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    We live in a small town but are 15/20 minutes from a larger town and from Ft. Worth. I don't personally consider that a long drive at all as that's just standard living in Texas. But I'm sure some people might consider it a long one.

    Anyway, we have 4 huge co-ops within that driving time from us. However, I didn't want/need a co-op; we just wanted to meet and make friends. So, I started a fellowship group a couple of years ago. We typically do stuff on Fridays--- field trips, game days, theme days, etc. We just had a major theme day--- Yuckfest 2010. We played 12 'messy' games [most dealt with food--- some with mud/liquids]. We played 6 games, then broke for lunch [spaghetti without utensils], then played 6 more games, then had sundaes from heaven [kids walked under 2 ladders where moms sprayed down chocolate syrup and whipped cream], and, finally, we had an all-out food fight/water balloon fight/water gun fight. It was truly disgusting...but fun.

    Anyway, I've personally really enjoyed our group. I've gotten to know some great people, and we have friends we can call up for a play date if we want.
     
  19. NYCitymomx3

    NYCitymomx3 Member

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    We belong to several very active homeschool groups. They do everything: co-op classes, play groups, field trips, tours, parties, moms-night-outs, group sports, park dates, arts n crafts, etc.

    There are usually activities going on 5-6 days a week. We try and get to several a month. We used to do stuff with the groups like 3x a week, but we had to scale back, lol. Now we just mainly do the really great field trips and classes.
     
  20. Marcia

    Marcia New Member

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    We tried to join our local co-op group, but weren't allowed because I use a virtual charter school. I was so offended when I was told that, that it left a bad taste in my mouth.

    I would love to start my own, but I don't know enough people to get it started.
     
  21. *Angie*

    *Angie* Member

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    We're not involved in anything right now, because when we first started homeschooling, I was still working part time and the local homeschool group consisted of mostly families with older kids. I recently got back in touch with the group, though, and there are quite a few families with young elementary aged kids now. And I SAH full time. So meetings start up again in September and I plan to join. They do a lot of activities during the year, some educational (field trips, etc) and some just for fun (park days, aquatic center, etc).
     

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