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Extracurricular Activities
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I am starting to plan out our extracurriculars for this school year. I always struggle with this and am always worried that we are doing too much or too little. 😉 Just wondering what your philosophy is on this and what you are planning for this upcoming year? Christy
I’m always on the less is good, none is possibly best. LOL! I’m not willing to run 8 kids in multiple directions every day of the week or drag little ones along as I take older and middle kids to multiple activities. It is just me personally, I know some people prefer the opposite, lots of activities. We prefer family centered activities. (We’re also ones who don’t drop a kid off to play at a friend’s house. We prefer getting together with another family, not individual drop offs.)
So my kids currently do the following, all church sponsored and all on the exact same night at the exact same building, same time:
14 year old has youth group.
10 year old has Cub Scouts (we begin Cubs at 8 years old).
9 year old has Activity Days (this is for girls age 8-11, while boys do Cubs for the same ages). I’m actually the Activity day leader right now.
That’s it.
Now, we do have a Homeschool Book Club I started several years ago that we do as a family, meeting with a few other families once a month.
We don’t do organized sports with multiple nights/days of practices and games. We can play sports for fun as a family or with friends but we don’t choose to do organized team sports. Again, personal choice.
Music lessons – generally, if we are going to do these we seek a teacher who will come to us. We’ve done piano in the past. One daughter is considering paying for guitar lessons. Currently we are music lesson free and have been for over a year.
I have 4 kids – ds5.5, dd8, ds11, dd14. This is what our family does. Our rule is one thing per kid at a time, but we make an exception for ds11 and he gets two as sports truly are his bent.
Church Youth Group – Wednesday Evenings from 6-7 pm. DD14 and DS11 participate weekly and occ. activities. Little kids do not participate in AWANA, so we drop off the two at youth.
CM Co-op – Fridays from 9am-12:30pm followed several hours at the park. This meets weekly 12 times per term fall & winter. This is all of us and I’m the leader. This is a non-negotiable. The kids would mutiny without it and so would I.
Horseback Riding – Both girls ride once per week on the same day and time. Sometimes boys come along and watch and sometimes they stay home. Horses are a passion for dd14 and she’s been riding for 9.5 years. She would love to ride more frequently, but this is what we’re willing to do for now. When she drives, perhaps she can go more often.
Baseball – DS11 LOVES baseball. He’s played fall and spring seasons since he was 5. One practice and one game per week typically and it’s 5 min. from my house. Hubby is assistant coach. I love watching baseball, so no problem there. DS11 will age out of this league at 13 and we won’t be playing travel ball. Option to play on local school team, but I’m not thrilled with that idea. We will see. DS5.5 played 1 season of t-ball and then hasn’t played again. He will play instructional baseball (pitching machine) this fall. One practice and one game per week. We will try to get practices on the same night. Hubby will also help with his team. Girls attend many games to cheer for boys, but have the option to stay home.
Golf – DS11 takes a weekly lesson at least 3/4 of the year and gets dropped off to play once a week or every other week. DS11, dd8 and ds5.5 also play with Daddy. DS11 is good and has potential for a scholarship.
Music – DD14 took 6 years of piano. DS11 took 4 years. DD8 took 2. None have a passion for it. We stopped all lessons this spring.
Just how it works for us. Every family is different and every season is different. We took November 2014-February 2015 off from everything while I recovered from surgery. We take a chunk off in summer, too.
Christie
We keep extracurricular activities to a minimum. We are keep it simple kind of people. 🙂 My daughter takes piano once a week, we get together with another family for bible study once a week, and we get together with 2 different groups of homeschool friends once a month each. The only other regular outside activity is Sunday morning church.
I have to keep extracurriculars to a minimum as I also work full time second shift. But I think it’s easy to get involved in to much.
It depends on the family but we have four children; 2nd, 5th, 6th, & 7th grades. We also live in town so it is easier for the boys to get to sports practice otherwise I’m not sure they would be able to do any of it. The boys do baseball in the summer and wrestling in winter. My 5th grade daughter is going to be starting violin lessons as soon as I set that up so that will be once a week and my oldest daughter, 7th, will just have catechism with our Pastor on Wednesday afternoons. Then we belong to a local homeschool co-op that meets on Friday afternoon for 8 weeks in fall and 8 weeks in January-March. (With some field trips in there too). I think extras are really nice and allow for some fun times and interests but we have to be careful not to go overboard with them.
I struggle with this every single year. How much to do, should I be doing more, less? The area we live in (or maybe it’s just typical everywhere) kids are in A TON of activities, just hearing some of my friend’s schedules stresses me out. Yet when I hear how much stuff others are doing and how little we are (or desiring to do) i think “gah I should look into a class for this child or that child…..” I joined a coop this past year because of this guilt and it was a HUGE mistake… just not a good fit for us. I’m a homebody so I prefer to be home, yet I understand that this is just not possibly, especially as they get older. I’m noticing as my oldest gets into the age where she is wanting to play with dolls and such less, taking ballet lessons is becoming a big benefit.
This year our extra curricular activities are: Ballet for my 11 year old twice a week (which is in the evenings and my mom takes her to), my bible study every other week and I’m trying to pull together a monthly nature walk/study with a few families. I kept getting tempted to add in something for my 9 year old…. but I don’t know, I’d like to wait another year and let her just play in her free time.
I personally think that whatever balance you find it’s important not to be frenzied. Extra activities should be a blessing and not a burden, if you and your kids are feeling spread thin and pulled in all directions something is off balance. And this balance will look different for each family.
I personally think that whatever balance you find it’s important not to be frenzied. Extra activities should be a blessing and not a burden, if you and your kids are feeling spread thin and pulled in all directions something is off balance. And this balance will look different for each family.
I agree completely.
For us, it depends on the child. We have one who enjoys one sport/activity and that’s it. I can do that.
Another one who is not as interested in outside activities, so it’s pretty limited for him, too. His choice.
Then there’s another one who really enjoys outside classes/music, etc. I am more than willing to take him to these classes as long as they don’t interfere with his school work. I may even tell him that “such and such” class just doesn’t work for our schedule this year. We may compromise and find something that works best or hold off til the next year. It all depends.
I do try to keep the kids at the same place/time if I can to make it easier on me. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Every family is unique to their situation. Don’t feel bad because you do enjoy being out multiple times a week (or even in the same day!) or feel bad because your family limits these outings.
I struggle with this as well.
When we had fewer children and they were younger, we had 3 boys playing hockey. When they were 5, 7, and 9, we had them all quit hockey because it was getting to be too much driving around with all the different teams and game and practice times (not to mention the 3 and one year old we had by then also).
We decided to switch over to a family sport which we could all do together and this has been much better. We started downhill skiing, which works well for us because winters are long here. The children can all still do individual things while we are at the mountain (some ski, some snowboard, some do ski racing, some do freestyle ski club etc), but we all come together at the same time and leave together at the same time. Our kids are now aged 2.5, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14, and they all enjoy this (and us parents can participate as well: bonus!) We went to the mountains every weekend, whenever my husband didn’t have to work. This was fun, but the mountains are a four hour drive one way.This year, we are thinking of changing things up a bit and switching over to cross country skiing and biathlon (which is in the city). Some of the kids are happy about this and others want to stick with alpine ski racing. Biathlon/ cross country skiing is held on Wednesday evenings and Saturday or Sunday mornings. It is far from our house but since it is only twice a week, I think I can handle that. If I let my alpine racers keep racing, that is on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. That is starting to fill the whole week almost which really worries me. But, I have a son who just loves alpine racing and he is just devastated at the thought of giving it up. Sigh. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Add to this that I want them to learn how to swim (this would be at least once a week) and they have been going to weekly art lessons during the day for years, which they love, plus they want to do archery.
If only I had a personal chef, maid, babysitter, and chauffer for the children. Then I could just say yes to everyone’s activity requests!
I have two boys, 7 & 9. I am rather impulsive about saying yes to different activities, so last year, we had, at one point, three different morning classes in the next town. (Rock climbing, and LEGO robotics) The year before, I was in a co-op on Fridays, which was fun, but my teaching there took away from our schooling at home. We also had swim lessons once a week.
This year, I am trying to be very careful about our activities, and trying to keep them in the afternoon. My husband and I want each one to be involved in a physical activity. DS7 will be doing developmental soccer. DS9 would like to try gymnastics. We also are okay with letting them do one “other” activity. Options this year may be scouts or 4-H. My elder son will be starting piano lessons, too. All of those things, coupled with my Tuesday evening Bible study, will be plenty…and maybe too much?
I am easily distracted, and need to work hard this year to stay focused on my home and school responsibilities. It is hard, when there are fun options afoot. 🙂
Yes it’s important to NOT feel frenzied. We have the boys in baseball because they like it and we (me included) REALLY like baseball and especially watching them play. Maybe try and find something you can all do as a family. That helps. I teach all my kids piano so that saves on that too.
Thanks so much everyone, for a peek into your extracurricular schedules! This has gotten me thinking. 😉
Christy 🙂
Through the summer we have done dance classes, swimming lessons, and golf lessons. Through the rest of the school year, we will be participating in Frontier Girls together (yes, I’m a huge nerd and will be earning badges too!). 🙂
I try to do things where everyone can participate at the same time. This fall we have piano on monday ( for both girls); swimming on Tuesday and Thursday, and every other week my youngest has girl scouts. We’re the weird family that brings homemade dinner to the pool and eats together as a family between lessons :). And we have enrichment classes on Fridays. It will be a little busy but I do get help from grandparents. We usually alternate between seasons of extracurricular activities and seasons of nothing– so probably by Christmas we will be ready for some nothing for the spring. That rhythm seems to work for us.
Remember, what you choose for this season ( whether that’s to do activities or not to) doesn’t have be the same for next season. Good luck in making your schedule.
Lindsey
My DS6 and I like and need to get out of the house. So far our upcoming schedule has Sunday morning and evening booked for church activities, Wednesday morning is Bible Study Fellowship, followed by picnic playdates at a park. Awana in the evening. There are a lot of free activities in our area on Tuesday afternoons, so we like to take advantage as much as possible. I am currently looking into sports opportunities (swimming lessons, gymnastics). As an only child, DS enjoys being around others and doesn’t have enough people at home. We do well getting out 5 days a week! Our schedule will fill in more over the next few weeks, but I do make sure we have quiet ‘homebody’ days twice a week.
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