Common Fears: What about extracurriculars?
Many new homeschool parents worry that by pulling their kids out of the public school system, they are going to miss out on all the fun extracurricular activities that they remember from their own childhood. Perhaps this was the case in some places in the early years of homeschooling, but in the 21st century, nothing could be further than the truth! Here are a few areas where we’ve found rich extracurricular opportunities.
Sports
Over the years, my own children have tried out tennis, baseball, water polo, roller hockey, figure skating, ballet, Irish dance, Jiu-Jitsu, swimming, and soccer. We have friends whose high school boys’ homeschool football team won the state championship in their conference (consisting mainly of private schools), friends who do homeschool track and field, and friends who have played basketball and volleyball through a local private school. While some of these programs are specifically geared to homeschoolers and meet during the school day, we have also enjoyed many parks and recreation leagues that offer group lessons and recreational teams, private studios for dance, and club teams for swimming, water polo, and roller hockey.
Music
We started with private piano lessons and then moved to a homeschool orchestra program that provided group lessons for our daughters who wanted to try strings. My violin, viola, and cello player continued with private lessons but also took advantage of a homeschool fiddle group that performed at the Iowa State fair, a private youth orchestra, summer orchestra camps, a summer orchestra concert with our local community orchestra, joining a children’s music program through the international chamber music competition at our local university, and finally, joining a local college orchestra for free, as they welcome community members to fill out the ranks of their college chamber orchestra. In our community, there is a free children’s choir through Notre Dame University for families whose children want to sing sacred music, but we have enjoyed several years of a homeschool children’s choir through our little homeschool co-op. We haven’t bothered looking into having our children join school band, choir, or orchestra because we have so many direct opportunities, but we have many friends who do attend their public high school just for music.
Art
When my kids were young, we found a wonderful community art program that had monthly open studio nights for families for $5. When we joined a children’s museum in another state, my kids made a beeline for the art room and loved doing both guided projects with a staff member as well as their own creative projects. We’ve taken pastel and watercolor lessons from a local art studio as well as watching youtube watercolor tutorials. I reached out to my sister-in-law, a professional artist, for recommendations on the best art supplies, and we keep our school room stocked with good paper, paints, pencils, and brushes. This year, our homeschool program is adding in elementary art classes.
Drama
It’s hard to imagine putting on a play with just your family, but fortunately, opportunities for dramatic homeschooled children abound! Homeschool co-ops often have improv or acting classes, taught by parents or local drama teachers, and my fondest memory from junior high was starring as the blind heroine of a Wild West melodrama with my homeschool group. One of my daughters got to star in a musical at our local university at age 9, so check out colleges near you that might be putting on shows with children’s parts; two of my other children recently joined the local opera company for run of La Boheme that needed a group of children. My high school daughter adapted, directed, and starred in a homeschool production of The Importance of Being Earnest with a group of friends, and now I teach Shakespeare at our homeschool enrichment program, giving my kids and their friends the chance to perform scenes from the plays we study each year. In our area, there are community and homeschool children’s theater camps that run during the summers.
Speech and Debate and Academic Clubs
In Iowa, we joined a homeschool Future Problem Solvers club, and my girls made it through regional and state competitions and competed at FPS Internationals in their very first year! Homeschool speech and debate is also a big deal, so check your local community for clubs around you. One of my girls fell in love with Mock Trial during her one year at a private school, and after we brought her home, she has continued to compete with her old team for a small fee. Our teens all attend a youth in government camp every summer and have participated in House, Senate, Moot Court, and Journalism tracks.
Dances, Field Days, and Other Celebratory Opportunities
I never attended a school dance until I went to college, but homeschoolers certainly love to give their kids opportunities to dress up and learn some dances! Every place we’ve lived in has had a homeschool prom and/or formal banquet (or three), and one of my homeschool mom friends is a square dance caller who throws regular dances for our community. Another local homeschool mom opens up her ballroom dance studio for quarterly homeschool dances. And we have taken our own Jane Austen-loving girls to costumed English Country Dances where everyone dresses in Regency garb and dances like Elizabeth Bennet did!
In our community, there is a massive field day with group games and water balloon fights, hosted every year by a homeschool co-op (but welcome to all homeschoolers). Other local homeschool programs throw their own, as well.
Volunteering and Community Service
As homeschoolers, we’re able to use our personal connections with the needy around us to make sure our service hours are actually productive. All four of our teenagers have volunteered at our local church, as a part of the tech team, childcare, and VBS volunteers. Since my kids started playing instruments, we’ve made a practice of gathering a group of friends and performing Christmas songs at area retirement and nursing homes to brighten the day for the residents. We’ve played fiddle songs (and Irish danced) at the same places for St Patrick’s Day, and our Irish Dance studio coordinates with a local folk music ensemble to perform at a community fundraiser for our local parks. As part of giving back to the classical chamber music program my girls had the privilege of participating in, we’ve also volunteered at the international music competition they host every summer and have gotten to meet professional musicians from around the world! As part of a year-long government and public service internship, my middle child volunteered at our local pregnancy resource center, the area pro-life advocacy organization, and helped at foster-adoptive family support events hosted by the organization that runs my foster/adoptive moms support group. As a group, our homeschool program picks charities associated with our members; we’ve collected donations for the local food bank, bought coats and winter gear for children in the Spanish-speaking church where our Spanish teacher attends, and will be collecting toys for foster families who need some help making Christmas special for the children in their homes. We know homeschool groups who have adopted a highway to pick up trash, provided tutoring for disadvantaged kids, prepared meals at soup kitchens, and done just about any service project you could imagine. You don’t have to have a formal service club to teach your kids to give back to their community, though you could certainly start one and invite other homeschool families to join you!
