Friday we had a great homeschool Halloween party for our regional homeschool group. We had a great turnout and so much fun! This week, a local performing arts high school is doing special matinees for our group. They are performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I am so excited to go and share this with my children. The best part is that my husband has Friday’s off now so he will be able to go with us.
I made a huge mistake the first few years that I homeschooled and that was that I didn’t get involved in many community functions or homeschool groups. My children love the social aspect and fun of these activities. Not only did they have the activity on Friday and then the one on Wednesday but today they got to go to the nearby elementary school where the local Recreation Mobile comes once per week and gets the kids active and playing games. My three oldest kids ages 11, 10 and 5 all love going to this and it is completely free. I have probably blogged about this previously. It is a gem!
It would have been wonderful if I would have had the foresight to take my kids to more of these things earlier on. Our community has so much to offer families for little or no cost. We are also lucky to have a few local homeschool groups that are just wonderful! This coming Friday we even have a fall harvest activity with hay rides and other activities with one group. It just doesn’t get any better.
More than anything these functions give my children a chance to spend time with other children who share the same lifestyle. They love to know that they are not the only homeschool family in the state. They love to see that other kids love what they do too! It isn’t easy for kids to be different from their peers. This gives them a group with something in common. Don’t we all need that at one time or another? This is not to say that I don’t teach my kids to be individuals but I think that it does the heart good to have a good peer group.
