HS Group Activities

[ColwynsMommy]

If you participate in a homeschool group (or dream about your ideal homeschool group), what activities do you really love? What are the events/meetings that are the biggest hits? What does your group not offer, that you'd love to see offered?

I'm gearing up for the next planning meeting for the homeschool group I run, and while I plan lots of activities and am always totally open to suggestions, I sometimes have a hard time getting people to attend. Then recently, I overheard a few of our members talking about how great a few other HS groups are (that I also belong to) that offer X, Y, and Z.. when XYZ are all things that I've offered to host in the past, but had little to no response. Our members seem to always be reluctant to come up with ideas or even respond to my suggestions, so I'm going to open a poll with a list of possible activities to hopefully get some feedback, prior to our in-person planning meeting.

Anyways. What are your favorite HS group activities?

[jlpumkin]

I'm not sure that I can speak for the norm but I am drawn to my current hs group for these events in this order:

1. Laid back loosely organized social events during the day: bowling 3d friday, skating 1st friday, park day each thursday, etc.
2. Organized "replacement" school activities - a year book (though of families), "school" pictures, kindy graduation, track & field day.. I believe they also offer dances & high school graduation but mine aren't anywhere near that yet.
3. Seasonal educational events with a group discount - hayrides & pumpkin patch lessons in the fall, special exhibits at museums, etc.
4. Awesome used curriculum sale at the end of each year.

I tend to be less drawn to organized learning experiences such as the science experiment club or anything that gives my littles a lot homework to do at home. I think our curriculum choices cover our necessary, and I'm looking to my hsing group for the gravy.

Not sure if that's what you were looking for...

[ColwynsMommy]

Those suggestions are awesome, thanks! It never occured to me that people might want a yearbook or K/etc graduation. How do they do the yearbook, can you share details?

We do a lot of the social events, though moreso in the summer. Bowling, mini-golf, park days, etc. We also do monthly book club, toddler story time, science activities, and Earth Scouts. Everyone seems to like doing holiday parties, so we try to get those in. We've offered a parent workshop on storytelling and I've offered to host others on a variety of topics. We did police and fire station tours, trips to museums, caroling during the holidays.

We're pretty active, but it's always like pulling teeth to get good attendance, and nobody ever wants to make suggestions on things they'd like to do. I'm open to hosting just about anything, but I don't want to put in the time and effort to set something up if nobody's going to attend, you know? So it's really frustrating to not get any input.

[jlpumkin]

Are you heading up this group or alone? I think it's just the nature of the beast that folks want the benefits of a group without any work or commitment. We have I think just over a 100 families in our group but you'd never know that. Maybe 6 families regularly attend park day, probably more ~ 15 or 20 skating... so it's probably frustrating for our board as well. But to be a part of this support group it's required to at least assist on some activity committee. So at least some of the work is spread around.

As to the year book I only know from a families perspective - each family gets a page. We decorate the template as desired with pictures from our year etc. The put those all together with pictures from all the activities hosted throughout the year and voila for $20 we have a yearbook. They sell ad space & we collect boxtops to help offset the cost as well. HTH!

[jlpumkin]

I should also add that as of now, this group is really the only active hs support group. I'm a member of our local Catholic one too, but that's more just mom to mom support of a tea once a month. If anyone wants to really have family to family support and activities in this area, we have to put out the $$ and join this hs group. So they might be able to get away with a bit more demands (albeit reasonable ones) due to lack of other options - at least at this time...

[accidental_hs'er]

Groups...

I don't think of us as officially belonging to a group. We have a core group of about 4, or now 5 families that do a lot of stuff together. Examples of activities are:

* Starting a french class with a french teacher.
* Doing physical activities, like hiking, swimming, skating.
* Going to art classes at a gallery (I organized).
* Going to larger hs activities, like organized gym classes.
* An educational co-op that runs every 2 weeks. This one is pretty labour intensive and was started by the original 4 families.
* Field trips to local venues.
* Play-dates and tea chats for the moms.

Basically, we do or create what we need, see if the other "core members" are interested, then open it up to the general hs population at large. I love this system.

The co-op, for example, was a way for some of us to introduce more group work to the kids. They do presentations. We do larger projects that would be too costly or time consuming for just one family or projects that need several participants, like putting on a play. Last co-op meeting we made comets out of dry ice and did other experiments with craters and gravitational pull.

I feel like we have tiers of homeschool support this way. We have out "best" homeschool friends where the kids hang out with each other regularly. We even did a class pic at our Christmas recital. On top of that we have a group of regulars who sign up for the art class, gym or co-op. They are more than just aquaintances to us. We see them mostly at hs activities but are getting closer and having playdates with a few now too.

Since nothing formal is set up (other than the co-op) we can pick and choose what to be a part of. I know that if I want to plan a zoo trip, I can count on 11 kids coming with the likelihood of a dozen or so more interested if asked.

Group seems so formal to me. We formalized the co-op with a a lot of rules and expectations to make it work (and because we get a community centre room and library assistance for it) but everything else is quite relaxed. More like friends who help each other or do stuff together. No one is in charge. I wanted art so I arranged classes and people came. Another mom wanted french and found the teacher. We don't sit as a committee and think about what to do next. It is usually one of us mentioning something over tea and the others saying that they would join in if it was that something was organized.

[ColwynsMommy]

I guess our group sounds formal, but it's really not. Our planning meeting is mostly an excuse for a mom's night out.. we spend a few hours eating and chatting, then the last half hour is "So, I was thinking of taking the kids here, should we plan a field trip?" There's almost never more than three moms and myself there. I really try to encourage other parents to at least make suggestions, even if I'm the one who ends up doing the work for it.

I started the group and I'm in charge, I guess, but it's more that there's nobody else willing to do it. We don't really have rules other than basic consideration (pay any fees promptly, don't bring your kids if they're sick, etc). It sounds a lot like what you guys do, except only one or two other moms ever pitch in to plan things, and that's only occasionally.