Collaborative Efforts

In planning the next semester, I offhandedly mentioned to Denver that maybe Clayton, a next door neighbor boy the same age as Denver who is also homeschooled, might like to do the simple machines and chemistry activities with him.  Denver's face lit up with such excitement at the thought of doing activities with a friend that I felt a twinge of regret that I haven't organized such activities for him before now.

For those who think the life of homeschoolers is a quiet, sedate pace, think again.  Constant enrichment activities and field trips are blended into the day along with the normal daily activities of exercise, eating, chores and more.  I have found it amazingly difficult to connect with other homeschooling mom's and their kids for activities.  We all seem to have some level of desire to connect, but our days have a structure to them just like any classroom, and to a degree we are loathe to break the routine too much.

I happened to run into a mom at the library who was checking out all the Egypt books they had, and we emailed back and forth to figure out a time and day to meet and plan some collaborative ancient civilizations activities for our daughters who are the same age.  Finally it got pushed back to January:  after the holidays.

Another family was recommended to my son for collaborative activities, and coincidentally we met them in kayaking class a few weeks back.  Apparently they have been travelling all fall and are finally home.  We'll be swapping emails this week at the last kayaking class and then the dance to coordiate schedules will begin.

Ultimately, I hope to more along these lines, but it is a delicate balance of finding other kids whose personalities, learning styles and interests match.  With homeschooling this process can take time, but I suspect that once we find those other families it will be a little bit easier.  We begin to meet people when we're out and about and find out which ones are homeschooled and would be interested in daytime activities.  Proximity makes a difference of course, not that "the other side of Homer" is all that far away (15-20 min.).  Meanwhile, we will continue to get out there and seek out other kids who would enjoy group activities.

Fresh Starts...and the Joys of Today

I've been blogging about life in Alaska for a couple of years and it never occurred to me to start another blog until a few weeks ago it crossed my mind to start blogging about our family's recent venture into homeschooling. I have plenty on my plate: why add more? Well, the thought has persisted and I haven't been able to shake it, so here I am. My thought is to drop in every day or so and just share how things are going on our homeschooling journey. It is mighty personal...don't know if you will find this interesting. If nothing else it will be a record for my kids (from mom's perspective!) of the homeschooling journey.

Today I was so excited to get an email from a mom I ran into at the Homer Library. I saw her checking out every single book they had on Egypt and had to crack a joke about us homeschooling families "cleaning out the library," since it was just over a month ago that I checked out every single Egypt book! Anyways, we got to talking and I guess her daughter, who is the same age as my daughter, is studying ancient civilizations this year, same as us. So we have decided we're going to get together and do some activities together! I'm excited! I've been wanting to collaborate but haven't found anyone else who is studying the same things as my kids (same level, same book, etc.).