We’ve just begun our fourth year of hosting a, for lack of a better term, a homeschool variety club. This has been one of the best decisions I have made in our homeschooling journey and I’ll tell you why in this post.
Now, I don’t really like the name “variety club” for what we do but on hind sight this really is about the best way to describe it because we change the theme every year. So far we’ve had these themes:
- Lego Club (read How we Started a Homeschool Lego Club)
- Minecraft Club (year two)
- STEAM Club (year three)
- Art/Music history
We usually have up to four or five families represented in our group every year and that’s a tight squeeze for my home. I don’t plan on ever making it any bigger than I can reasonably fit in my home and there are no fees.
We keep this club educationally light and the kids have time to socialize as they wish before and or after our lessons. Since it’s my home I usually provide many of our supplies and one or two of the other moms will bring a snack (I provide water to drink). Starting your own homeschool club begins with finding one interested homeschool mom. After you’ve found a willing partner the following steps will help you get your homeschool variety club established.
Pick your theme
What inspired me to seek to start this was our family’s abundance of LEGO® products that I wanted to put to better use. Find free LEGO printable and activities here.
Develop your schedule
Plan a meeting with the other lead-mom and schedule out your year. In the beginning we planned every other week but over time that has changed to twice a month (the second and fourth Wednesday of each month).
Choose who leads
Decide who will lead each week or take turns. Will you need supplies? Just be prepared.
Plan for snacks
Ask the moms to take turns bringing a light snack if you think you’ll need one.
Add Field trips
Since we are studying art/music history one of the moms has volunteered to plan related field trips to art museums. Depending on your theme field trips may or may not be desired.
See images from our different yearly clubs at these links:
Tracy, formerly not a fan of homeschooling, can’t think of a better way to educate her two sons and has been doing so for going 11 years now. She blogs about homeschooling, travel and family fun in her home state of Ohio.
