Educational Clubs

A couple of years ago I wrote an article about forming homeschooling clubs.  I always meant to post it, but forgot until now.  I am currently planning some new clubs which made me think about it again.  Here is the article:

HOMESCHOOLING CLUBS

Organizing various classes and clubs for my children has brought me a lot of joy as a homeschooling mom.  My children love to do activities and gather with friends and I’m much more likely to plan something special for my own children if other children are joining us and I have a deadline!  I’ve discovered that all my grand plans of doing art projects, crafts, cooking, and games easily fall by the wayside if I don’t have something to hold me accountable to those plans.  Clubs have given life and vitality to our homeschool.  These are a few of the clubs I’ve formed over the years:

 

Liberty Belles

Before I started homeschooling, my sister told me about a “Liberty Girls” club in Utah that her daughter participated in.  Girls ages 6-9 would read books from the American Girl series and meet twice a month to discuss their readings and do activities.  This sounded wonderful to me and I kept wishing someone would start a club like that in my area so my 6-year-old daughter could participate.  After homeschooling for a year, no such club had magically formed.  I went to the LDSEHE homeschooling conference and met Diann Jeppson, the founder of the Liberty Girls clubs in Utah.  She was more than willing to let me “copy” her idea and put it into action out in Virginia, she just asked that I changed the name.  I loved her suggestion of a new name and thus, “Liberty Belles” was born.

 

Getting Started:

Diann gives excellent advice and very detailed explanations for starting a club like this in the book A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion.  This is how I went about it:

Step 1—Choose a girl from the series to read about.  Since we live in Virginia, we naturally started with Felicity Merriman--a colonial girl from Williamsburg, VA. 

Step 2--Make an outline for the club that includes club dates, reading assignments, and a basic idea of what activities, crafts, and lessons you would like to do at each meeting.  There are 6 books for each girl, you can divide that over 6 meetings or 12, I’ve done both.

Step 3—Establish club guidelines and fees.  Before finding people to fill the club, determine how many people you can manage having in your home and what ages you want to include.  It’s also good to clearly define what is expected of parents--whether or not they will need to help, whether or not they can bring other siblings if they do stay to help, and so forth.  For fees, I calculated how much I thought the projects were going to cost and charged that amount.  I didn’t try to make a profit, I didn’t even cover expenses for my own daughter (I remedied this in later clubs).

Step 4—Advertising.  When I started this club, I only knew one other homeschooling family that had a daughter in the age range I was looking for.  I was hoping to find at least 6 other girls to participate.  I put a post on a local homeschooling yahoo group and included an outline of what we would be doing, the dates, the cost, etc.  I was amazed at how quickly people responded.  It wasn’t long before I had 12 girls and a waiting list.

Step 5—Run the club and enjoy it!  This club was so much work but it was also very enjoyable and rewarding.  I was blessed to have 12 delightful girls come to my home every 2 weeks, eager to participate and be a part of the club.  As a group, we were introduced to famous characters in  history and we were able to learn about the events that led to the American Revolution and discover what people were thinking and feeling at that time. 

Our second year, we read about Kit from the Great Depression.  By this time, I knew the girls and their moms and I was able to recruit two wonderful mothers to share the load with me.  This made a big difference!  Previously, I had been doing prep work for 3 to 4 projects/activities before each meeting, planning a book discussion and an educational/historical lesson, and let’s not forget--cleaning the house (always a big project around here!).  It’s no surprise that I questioned at times whether or not I should have taken on such a venture.  Bottom line--get help if you can.

History Club

As much as I loved the Liberty Belles club, it was for girls only and I had a son that was growing-up who also wanted to be a part of a club.  I considered starting an equivalent club for boys but I knew it would be too much for me to run two clubs.  So, I dispensed with Liberty Belles and started a history club based on the Story of the World series (I also copied this idea from other homeschoolers).  I wasn’t up to running and planning the whole thing this time so I invited a few other families to participate and share the load.  Each mom agreed to take turns planning the activities and hosting the club meetings at their homes.

We are finishing our second year with this club and it has been such a blessing.  We have 3 families participating right now so each mom has to plan a meeting every 6 weeks, definitely easier than every 2 weeks.  It has been wonderful to have different moms planning things because they do things I would never think of.  They have strengths I don’t have and my children are getting exposed to different teachers and activities than they would have if I was doing it on my own.  The Story of the World series is great because each volume has an accompanying activity book with ideas of things to do.  The moms can choose something from the activity book or come up with something on their own that correlates with the readings.  Recently we read about Lewis and Clark and the hosting mom had us meet at a hiking trail instead of her home.  She talked to the kids about how to use a compass, how to draw maps, how to make a map key.  She gave them papers and clipboards and they mapped out the trail and surrounding areas as they hiked.  I wouldn’t have thought of doing this myself but I loved the idea!  We have also done Medieval tournaments, Shakespeare plays, and various field trips associated with our readings.

Variety Class

I formed this little class last year because there were several subjects I wanted to cover that I wasn’t fitting into our homeschooling life—Art, Music, Geography.  I knew I needed to organize something that would force me to attend to these areas.  I invited a few families I knew and set a limit of 8 kids (I’ve found it very difficult to have more than 8 kids if boys are part of the group!  6 is better).  I offered this class as a “drop-off” or “mom-break” class and charged a fee that went towards compensating me for my time, not just materials.  At each class we would learn about a famous artist and do an art project; learn about a famous composer and listen to some of his music; identify and memorize geographical locations; do a story assignment; and sometimes a drawing lesson.  I used the following books as guides:

 Discovering Great Artists by MaryAnn F. Kohl and Kim Solga

Themes To Remember by Marjorie Kiel Persons (Classical music recognition)

Drawing with Children, by Mona Brookes

Story Starters, by Karen Andreola (I ended up writing shorter story starters but this book was my inspiration).

 This class was a big hit with my kids.  My daughter loves Art and we were finally doing it!

 Final Tips:

·         When you first start a club, plan it for a short period of time—a 3 month semester, a 6-week session, etc.  If you end up not enjoying it, you can get through it and be done.  If it’s wonderful, you can start another session after a nice break.  Give yourself a built-in opportunity to reevaluate and change things.

·         Set behavior expectations from the start—boys can be particularly challenging.  Keep boy groups small and clearly define what is expected from the get-go.

·         Be careful about ages--too broad of an age span can make it difficult to find activities that appeal to the whole group.

·         Make sure you are compensated for your efforts or share the work equally with other moms.

·         You need to love the subject.  I tried teaching science for a co-op I joined and I was pretty miserable because it wasn’t my “love.”  I learned a lot but it wasn’t worth the high stress levels.

Closing Thoughts:

In starting any kind of class or club, it is important to consider your “season” in life and determine if you can balance running a class or club with the other responsibilities and duties that surround you.  I’ve found that I can handle different clubs at different times, depending on what is going on in my life.  After two sessions of Variety Class, I was in the middle of a pregnancy and feeling a lack of energy and inspiration so I took a break.  I hope to pick it up again later, when the season is right.  Even when a club is very successful, it doesn’t mean you will feel like doing it forever.  Your children’s needs and family dynamics will change over time, give yourself the flexibility to change with it.