How do you balance extra curricular activities with your HS schedules? How many activities etc. do your kids do at once? What is a good combination of activities that worked for you? How long do you try something that your kids are interested in before you allow them to drop? (My instinctive policy is that if they ask to take the class/lesson more than once, then once they are enrolled they must complete a 'session' of it--6wks minimum before I let them drop/quit. But I have nothing to base this on. Its just the way I feel.) We're scheduling the park and library into our WEEKLY calendar and committed to getting them there on a regular basis. But now I'm looking for what to put them in as far as structured, group activities go. The options are for all of them are: Martial Arts: 2x a week (7pm-8pm) Mon and Wed Visual Arts: 1x a week (5:45-7pm) Tuesday Gymnastics: 2x a week (TBA) TBA I'm considering putting them into all three of these activities. Evening/afternoon classes work well for us because that means we get some play time, school time, meal time, etc and can even fit in clean up time before we leave at 5:15 or 6:20 each day. We can even feed them a supper in the car, and give them a light snack upon returning home each day. The most realistic schedule is probably Martial and Visual arts for 8wks. Then do little league and gymnastics for how-ever-long-little-league-lasts. Feedback? Help? Discussion? To me these aren't really "extra" they are subjects/skills that I feel/want/know my students should experience that for 1 reason or another, they cant learn at the house with me. These are also important opportunities for group socialization with other children "their ages" as they do NOT live in a neighborhood with kids.
When I first jumped into homeschooling I was determine to get them socialized. But then I realized they are better socialized than most public school kids. We as a family got lost in all the activities and running around. My DD both found the niche in swimming and that consists of 4-5 times a week along with swim meets. That is plenty of us. I would just remember every family is different so only you will know what is enough. But do remember children don't need to be in several activities and overwhelmed.
When school work suffers, behavior suffers, and/or parents are stressed out, there's too much going on. Otherwise, it doesn't matter to me. For us, that works out to church 3x a week (a must), library (usually), therapy (a must), and one or two homeschool group events (field trips, park days, etc.).
Since my kids have been going to PS since the start, they have friends in the neighborhood we live in and they are always outside playing with them, riding bikes or walking around the cul de sac we live on. We also have a pool, so they get a lot of excersize that way and also they invite their friends over for pool parties all the time. We also go to the Library twice a week! I had considered putting them into a class/group of some type when we decided to HS, but I don't think they need it. They are already social butterflies within our community!
For dd in the fall she will be doing Swimming on Wed nights and then gymnastics one other night. Starting this Sat. she will be participating in a homeschool soccer program that runs until mid Oct. Since the other programs do not start till mid/late Sept we only have a few weeks were she is doing 3 programs (aside from co-op) a week. We have also thought about enrolling her in a homeschool gym class that meets on Thurs. afternoon but I think that is going to be too much for me. The gym class is at a local college but it is about 20-30 min drive where as the others are closer to home. I try to limit activities like that to 2-3X a week this way we have plenty of flexible time to do sput of the moment things.
I try to limit activities to 1 per day. Our girls have Jiu-Jitsu on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and we usually do a homeschool group thing on Tuesday. That leaves us open to go to the park OR library on Mondays or Thursdays.
My girls do piano once a week and a performance choir once a week and my son is in flag football once a week with one game per week. Other than church and school stuff (like library), that is enough for us. I try to plan one day a week where I don't have to go anywhere. That allows me to catch up on housework once we have finished our school work for the day as well as just relieves the stress of having to finish by a certain time. That is just us though, I really don't enjoy driving all over trying to keep up with especially busy schedules. I did that last year and we all paid dearly for it.
I'm glad you brought up this subject. I have 5 kids who have always been very active in a variety of activities. One of my (many) reasons to homeschool is that it will allow us to use afternoons for some of our activities instead of trying to squeeze everything in after 6 pm. I just received an email about a monthly homeschool gym and open swim program that's only a mile from my house. There are also other gym or swimming programs nearby. I've been invited to join a co-op geography club and I'd like to make weekly library trips. My problem now is deciding which activities to do without overdoing it. We already have 2 kids in soccer, one in band, 1 in gymnastics and soon dance, 2 in Scouts (we're the leaders) plus a variety of possible church activities that take up evening and weekends. We could do park days and music lessons and service projects and on and on... I guess I'll have to sit down and look at each child's schedule and how it impacts the family schedule. I just might laugh when somebody asks the dreaded question about "socialization"! My homeschooled son has more opportunities for socialization than most kids get in YEARS. Now I just have to say "no" to some of them.
Right now money is limiting us-though I'll be honest-I'm a homebody-I think we're full up right now anyway-even on a shoestring budget....my kids socialize with hubby and I, each other, and usually my parents daily. We live in a tight-nit neighborhood, everybody is related to either us or one other neighbor who my dad has known since he was like 10-so everyone is over here a lot (there is usually at least 1 guest daily-usually more than one most days)-from ages 7-75-and my kids interact well with each and every one of them. So I'm not worried about socialization-I just want them to experience the activity for the sake of the activity. (though I came back up to this paragraph to add-homeschool playgroup is about socialization-for them to make friends 'like them' and for mommy just as much as the kids!!!! It's nice to talk to other homeschool moms and them understand you-most people think I'm crazy LOL) We do co-op classes on Monday 11-3 Both kids have 3 classes-my 6 year old takes zoology, history and crafts. 3 year old has preschool learning time (mostly just play/crafts), undirected playtime then crafts with the older one. So it's a huge chunk of our day. (may move library to this day) Tuesdays we have cub scouts. once a month pack meetings take more of our time cause they are further away from the house-but the meetings are an hour either place. I try to let this be hubby's thing with our oldest (as I don't want to get suckered into all the leader planning-the less I know what's going on-the less likely hubby is to put it off on me LOL) I usually take the 3 year old to the monthly pack meeting though, but the other weeks, we usually stay home. Fridays is either field trips, playgroup and/or library. (we don't do 'school' on Fridays) I'm thinking of dropping playgroup until co-op is over then dropping co-op next semester and going with playgroup instead.... I just turned out to be too relaxed/unschooling to be real happy about co-op LOL I think the only way we'll do co-op next semester is if the kids beg for it AND I can get the oldest into zoology and PE and an art class-I don't want a school setting academic class for him. Zoology is the exception cause he just can't get enough zoology-we're doing apologia zoology 1 in 6 months (the book is set up to cover a year of science) and I STILL have to supplement with MORE science for this kid!!! I would also like to add church to the week-we're looking for a home church, just haven't found our fit yet...
Sonita, I wish I could get my 7 year old together with your 6 year old. My little guy loves zoology too and is always begging me to get him a new creature of some kind. We're doing Apologia Zoology this year too. I'm planning to spend the whole year, but I won't be surprised if we finish earlier and move onto the next one.
I'm aiming for two activities at a time, so I think that Martial and Visual Arts will be a good fit. Yeah, the whole family is made up of homebodies but the little kids dont get out much and they want to get out more. They want to see more kids their ages and play with them. I dont trust other peoples kids enough to want my students to mix with them as my students are very sheltered and a typical PG movie is disturbing to me! Also, kids are worse than ever before (I think!) and the quality of parenting in my area seems to be falling each year.
We're also going to try and make "the park" a prominent staple in our schedule. Other than that ds (9yo - 4th grade) is already gearing up for a bunch of extra-curriculars, including: Theater class on Tuesdays (5:30-6:30) Science co-op on Wednesdays (2:00-3:00) LEGO Robotics/Applied Math class on Thursdays (12:30-1:30) Science classes at the museum on Fridays (12:30-2:30) Chess Club on Fridays (4:00-5:00) Webelo Scouts on Fridays (5:30-6:30) CCD on Sundays (10:30-12:00) Basketball on Sundays (TBA) These classes are either free, with low seasonal cost, or paid in 4-6wk increments. If ds wants to quit something, I have no problem with that - but if we paid for it, I always ask him to try it at least one more time. So far this works well with everyone's schedule, since we do academics from about 9:30am-noon during the week. I also work 3 weekday evenings (and both Sat & Sun) from 5:30pm-9:30pm (Mon, Wed, Thu). My older girls will both be in public high school (9th & 12th grades), so I'll be homeschooling only 1 child this year. I feel that as long as it works for your family and everyone's happy, then it doesn't matter how many "extras" they have. You won't know how it all will balance out until you're actually doing it. Once you get a groove going, you'll know what's working and what isn't.
