What happens when all the other kids go to school?

[possum]

My 3 year old is the only one of our local circle of acquaintances who is not going to preschool this year. I'm seriously not exaggerating. Of the children in town 2 and over with whom we are close enough that we have played at their homes or they have played at ours, my son is the only one not going to preschool.
I guess it just came up a bit more quickly than I ever anticipated. I just didn't expect that children who are still in diapers would even go to "school."
We are newish and temporary here, so we don't know many people outside playgroup people who are all going off to school soon.
We are currently part of a large play group/organization that I am feeling may not meet my child's needs or interests this year and with which I am feeling a bit of discontent about my volunteer activities. This is the one place where my son will be able to play with a consistent group of kids over the fall, winter, and spring; but he will likely be the only 3.5 year old surrounded by children mostly under 2. He is big for his age, very verbal, and does not play gently - not a great combination with lots of younger kids.
We lean toward unschooling and are not really keen on taking a music class just to get out of the house. The library doesn't have programs for "older" kids except in the summer.
I'm not sure if there's much of a homeschooling community here since I think my son is a bit young yet, and I'm not sure it's worth the effort of trying to work our way into another group since we will not be around when my son is actually school-aged.
I wonder if we should just not even try to do much with other kids for now.

[Hopefulmama]

I hear you loud and clear. It insane to me that kids start school so early. Just my opinion. If you feel the need to be with other kids/parents, we found plenty of them at the park that weren't in pre-school. It might not be a bad idea to check into a home-schooling group. See how extensive your involvement would have to be. You just might make some great connections. At age 3.5 my dc wanted to be around other kids a lot. I guess it also depends on if your son seems to have that desire.

[lonegirl]

I completely understand. All the kids in his gymborree class will be starting school this fall. That will then put him as the oldest in the room as it is a 3-5y room and all those going on 4 will be starting next week. I am going to be getting him back to swimming lessons as well as checking out a local Homeschool group next Tues to see the fit and how he likes it.

[pigpokey]

My advice like above is just to "go out" during morning hours -- to the park; sign up for a preschool gymnastics class that is held in the morning; etc. If you are out during morning hours you will find the kids that are not in any kind of preschool, or only go a couple of days a week.

[marimara]

I think we have the SAME exact problem. Down to being newish in town and temporary. We're military and will most likely have orders to move by the time dd is 5.5. She's almost 4 right now. This past year 90% of her friends went to preschool and this year 100% of them have. She is my only child so I don't have older siblings to get me into the homeschool group which doesn't have a lot of events for younger kids. You have to pay to join and it's religious, of which we are not. I did take her to a homeschool resource center last year (1x a week for 3 hours of arts/crafts/ballet) where we met two awesome homeschool families with young girls. We hit if off, life was perfect. Then they both moved. The homeschool resource center shut down. I started a yahoo secular and no one has joined (well one person did but they haven't responded to my emails).

Once it cools off, I will be making a concerted effort to get her to the park in the mornings to find other non-schoolers. She is taking ballet and soccer in the evenings where she gets to hang with other 3-5 year olds, but it's not exactly free play. She plays with our last set of friends that she's known for a while about twice a month, but they are both school kids. I really wanted her to have a small group of kids her age that she likes to play with regularly (free play, not adult oriented or directed-like classes). But she will play with kids her age at the park, we did that the other day (in the afternoon).

So I don't really have any advice, I'm doing the park thing once it cools off weather-wise. I'm hoping that will lead to something. Other than that, we do the ballet and soccer, just to hang out with other kids at all. I know OP said you didn't want to do adult-directed events so the park is probably your best bet. Our library also stops story-time at age 3.

[phathui5]

Have you looked for local homeschoolers in your Finding Your Tribe area?

[heatherdeg]

We're going through this now with my 6yo. What's worse is that we just moved to a new place with a street FULL OF KIDS and the last 6mo has been spent in 3 different homes pending our relocation (selling the house, etc.) and the 3mo before that were winter--so, lots of chaos and limited time outside.

None of his activities start for another 2 weeks because they give the kids time to settle into school before starting them up.

I have to be honest, I haven't been doing really great with dealing with it... I bought him some cool new things to play with (dry erase crayons, color by number by doing addition/subtraction book, etc.) but I need to step it up.

[AJP]

IME, informal HS groups tend to include a lot of kids under "school age" because of younger siblings. Co-ops or formal groups that exist mainly to provide classes or structured activities are more likely to include only certain ages, but groups whose main focus is support, socializing or field trips would typically have younger siblings included. Have you tried to find a group like that?

[possum]

Hmm, I think I will mosey on over to the FYT area and see about homeschool groups.