The Johnson Crew!

Hi friends, welcome back to my channel. Today, I want to share with you all the extracurriculars that our kids have been involved in and are involved in and give you some ideas for your elementary age kids. If this has been something that's been keeping you from homeschooling, if you've been worried that maybe there's not much for your kid to get involved with if they're not in a traditional school, I want to put those worries to rest.

There is plenty to do out there even if you're homeschooled. Today is a special video because it's actually in collaboration with a bunch of other homeschool moms who are going to be sharing their ideas with you and what their kids do as well. So, when you're done watching this video, you can click on the playlist below to see a whole list of other videos from other homeschooling moms who've joined in on this.

Thank you to all the other moms who joined in on this collaboration. I'm excited to see what everybody has to share. So, stay tuned. Okay, so I recently had someone share with me that this was a big holdback for them, that they were considering homeschooling but they weren't sure that their kids would have the same opportunities for sports and clubs and programs if they were not in traditional school.

And so that inspired me to make this video because I want to put those worries to rest. There's actually a lot out there for your kids to be involved with even as a homeschooler. And with how much homeschooling has grown over just the last 2 years, there are even more programs and clubs and things being started. So, there's much more for your kids to get involved with now than there was just a couple years ago.

So, it's a very exciting time to be a homeschooler, honestly. So, if this is something that's been on your cons list for homeschooling, you can go ahead and take it off your list. I've even heard of some counties allowing homeschoolers to be involved with their public schools programs and sports. So, if that's something you're wanting, I would recommend calling up your local school district's office and you can ask them.

Outside of public school though, most counties and cities will have public parks and rec programs that your kids can get involved with that are usually much cheaper than like private clubs and teams. And then outside of parks and rec, there usually are private local leagues that you can sign up for. So, first I'll address the parks and rec programs. So, here in Savannah, you can go on the city website, our county website, and you can find the different programs that the parks and rec program offers.

On the website, they have a sports program page where they offer information on local baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey, kickball, racquetball, soccer, softball, and tennis leagues. Super useful information. And then outside of parks and rec, there are other local leagues here that are just private leagues and you could join those. Outside of that, I would recommend getting on Facebook. You can find lots of local groups in your area through Facebook.

So, here we actually have an athletic homeschool association and they offer football, basketball, baseball, soccer, cheerleading, and golf. And then we also found a Christian homeschooling group here that offers American Heritage Girls, which is like Girl Scouts, and Trail Life for boys, which is like Boy Scouts. And they also have parent-led programs and clubs like speech and debate, 4-H, and theater. So, I highly recommend getting on Facebook and searching for local homeschool co-ops.

If you've not heard that word before, go ahead and type it into your Facebook and just see what pops up. We have actually a couple around this area, which is amazing. And hopefully you'll find some different events happening around your area. We have some groups that are specifically set up for just field trips or playground park meetups so that your kids can be meeting other kids and just have some fun playtime together.

So, what we have been involved in is soccer. My three oldest kids, 9, 7, and 5, have done soccer. And then this year they all decided to try something new. So, my 9-year-old is doing karate. My 7-year-old are doing gymnastics. I also have a 3-year-old. We've kind of just decided that we're not going to put anybody in anything until they're at least four. And it's just a lot if you have four kids, you know, it's a lot.

And I don't really want to busy up our entire week with activities. So, thankfully we've been able to work out the schedule to where we're only doing activities two nights a week. And these are not things where we have games on Saturdays. My kids that are in gymnastics are not at the meet level yet, so we haven't had to add that in. So, two of them do activities on one night, one of them does an activity on the other night, and then we have the rest of the week to, you know, get together with other people and whatever else we we want to do.

You can also find a lot of people who give private music lessons. We actually do online piano lessons, but probably in the very near future we'll be signing up our 9-year-old for real piano lessons in person. And so that's something that you can do as well. We used to attend a local co-op that did art classes and music classes. And that was pretty fun. And I just found those by searching on Facebook for homeschool co-ops and homeschool classes.

Before we moved here and when I only had two kids, um me and another friend who was also homeschooling, we actually started our own really teeny co-op, but we just offered an art class and a music class. She led the art class, I led the music class. It was very simple. Each was 30 minutes and we could charge like $5 a family for just the supplies that she had to get.

Very simple. So, I would encourage you if there's nothing going on in your area, maybe you can start something and that would be really fun. It doesn't have to be some huge grand thing. It can be very small. Sometimes it starts with us, right? We might be the ones who have to make something happen. I'm really thankful for all the communities that are available through Facebook because it's been a great way for me to meet other homeschool moms as well.

And you know, we need community. See? You don't have to go to school in order to be involved with extracurriculars and sports teams. It may require a little bit more research on our part, but the options are out there. There's even more, at least around our area, once they hit middle and high school. There's more programs available to them, even more sports teams. So, if you have a kid that's that age, you might find even more in your area.

We obviously haven't reached that age group yet, so I don't really have experience with it all yet, but as far as elementary age extracurriculars and sports teams, there is a lot to do around here. And I have a strong feeling that over the next couple of years we're going to see even more things getting started up in the homeschool community because there's just such a big influx of people starting to homeschool.

So, get excited. Hopefully this has been encouraging to you if this is something that has held you back from homeschooling, something you've been worried about. Hopefully this has calmed some of those fears and you feel equipped to go and find the activities that are available in your area. Certainly if you have any other questions for me, feel free to post them in the comments below. If your kids are already involved in activities, list those out for us below.

It's great to have some new ideas for everybody that's in this community. If you're new here, my name is Sarah and I have four kids from the ages of 9 to 3. And I like to talk a lot about homeschooling on this channel and life as a family of six and the occasional travel trip that we go on. So, if that interests you, go ahead and hit that subscribe button below and I'd love to have you join us here.

This year I am posting videos on the first and third Wednesday of every month. So, hit that little notification bell so you don't miss another video. And be sure to look in the description box below for the playlist of all the other moms and their videos. So, you can check out some more ideas. All right, until next time. Happy schooling.