Monday, February 15, 2010

My unsocialized homeschoolers

at lego club

Humans are social beings, which is why I reject the idea that kids needs to go to full-time school in order to "be socialized". Our current socializations occur in many ways:

Lego Club. Carbon LOVES Lego Club - it's held once a month is a library meeting room. The homeschool mom who organizes this club has been doing this for years, and in fact her own sons have outgrown it and now just come in to help or to play chess on the side of the room. But she still has the 12 tubs of legos they accumulated over their childhoods, and after a Show and Tell Circle where the kids get to show off their own creations from home, those tubs are all spread out and it's a couple hours of group lego building. She always finishes with another Show and Tell circle so all the kids can share what they built.

Park Day. Our homeschool listserve has a pretty loose and disorganized structure, but they do have park day, when families just show up at the park at anytime during that day and play with whoever is there. It's been a great place to meet new families and have unstructured play time.

Classes. We take all sorts of classes, but swimming and gymnastics are consistent. There are also YMCA sports, and the Children's Museum in town runs occasional Art and Science classes for homeschoolers.

Church. My kids are "staff kids" and they are at church all the time, where they have tons of friends.

Neighborhood. We have children living in the houses on both sides of us, and the doorbell will be ringing non-stop when school is out for "can Carbon and Hypatia come out and play?".

Playdates. I'm trying not to overload myself, so we are aiming for one playdate a week with various friends. Playdates can be at my house, at the other person's house, at the park, or at the Children's Museum.

Drop-in places. There are all sorts of places for the kids to drop-in and just socialize with whoever else is there. The YMCA has "playcare" to watch kids while their parents work out, and the food co-op has a little toy area for kids to play (unsupervised) while their parents shop, and there is the library children's room, and the Children's Museum, and the playgrounds.

Actually, their social-life is a lot of work for me - but it's all wondeful!

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