Home school GROUPS? What are they? You mean it wouldn't be just me?! Please explain!
Nope! Definitely not just you! It depends upon your area, of course, what groups people have organized. You can Google your state name and "home school groups" and get a sense of what's available to you. If you know anyone who is home schooling, you should also talk to them, since some groups aren't listed anywhere on the Internet. Don't be shy about asking: I guarantee you that person did the same thing when they were deciding to home school or not. Even a casual acquaintance would almost certainly be happy to help you.
Some groups are geared to people who are home schooling for religious reasons, but even those are sometimes open to others. There's definitely a sense of "we're in this together" in the home schooling community!
In my area--the suburbs of a smallish city in the midwest--there are LOADS of highly active home school groups! We could do something practically every day of the week if we chose to. The group I'm in is open to anyone who's interested. There are fees to cover the costs of individual events (as there should be), but there's not even a fee to join the group. I get an e-mail once a week telling me what activities are going on, and we decide what we want to do.
We do social activities together as well as educational trips and activities. We banded together and got a group discount on snowskiing, so that's our P.E. class for the winter. We'll meet up with the other families at the slopes for socializing and exercise, and there's no way we could have afforded a season of skiing--either in time or money--if we hadn't been home schooling. A group of older kids and their parents took a trip to Washington, D.C. earlier in the year, customizing what they did to the kids' interests. We went to a Danish Christmas celebration, and since that's my heritage, that was fun for us all, as well as being very social and a chance to try some new crafts we'd never done before. The group is also arranging for the kids to try out as many of the Summer Olympics sports as possible before the 2008 Olympics. We've already done judo and archery, and the others will start up in the spring.
But by far my favorite thing our group has done is an all-ages gingerbread-village-building activity--so fun and creative! There were probably 75 people there of all ages. The village they built was incredible!
They even have "Moms' Nights Out." No isolation problem here!
Seriously, Questions, if I had to do this alone, I wouldn't! Actually, my problem is not isolation but socializing overload, believe it or not. As an introvert, all the time we spend with other people wears me out. But when so many good opportunities come along, it's hard to pass them up. I just try to make sure we have at least a day or two a week with no activities so that we have some relatively quiet time at home.
If you want to know any more, let me know. (Maybe we should PM instead of posting to the list? Dunno... It is your thread, so I guess that as long as you don't feel like I'm hijacking it, we can stay here!
) Lorel could probably help you, too. She's got a lot more experience with all this than I do. But I do know that the social thing is NOT a reason to dismiss home schooling as an option. Not without doing some research about opportunities in your area first!
I hope this helps!
