Homeschooling Options

Hi All:

Here is a copy of an email I sent to the Kelowna homeschoolers. If any of you are interested, let me know. It is possible that we could do something in Lake Country if Kelowna and Vernon kids want to participate.


For those of you who don’t know us and our story. I am a single mom and I have an 11 year old boy Daniel. We homeschooled for 3 years and then in October Daniel returned to public school. After 8 months of schooling I find myself feeling conflicted about what to do for September. I now see what works for our family and what doesn’t work for our family with regard to homeschooling and public school.

I really wish that there was a third option. For our family what would work perfectly would be a program where Daniel could attend some sort of alternative ‘school’ program 2 full days a week. My vision would be that there would be 10 to 15 kids between the ages of maybe 9 and 15. Then there would be 4 or 5 ‘subjects’ – each led by a really passionate expert in that field who would bring his or her enthusiasm to the group and do really interesting activities with the kids.

For example I could imagine that there would be a personal trainer type person who would lead a physical education portion one afternoon each week. This person would then organize activities and outings in which the kids would have the opportunity to experience different sports and forms of exercise. I would love to see something really broad where the kids would learn different sports and also go for bike rides, go swimming, bowling. Ideally the kids would be involved in choosing the activities. The goal would be to inspire the kids to want to be active and healthy, to help them discover what activities they enjoy and to give them an opportunity to build skills in those areas.... and of course to have fun.

Another example would be a social studies portion – led by someone (or perhaps more than one person) who loves history and is socially activity. I could imagine that there would be different sections throughout the year where the kids would focus on different time periods. Then they would also have sections where they learned about social awareness and got involved in some programs in the community. I would love to see a really hands on, fun approach that would really hold the kids’ interest.

As I think about it I can think of other ideas around a science class, maybe a foreign language class – the possibilities are endless. So what I was thinking is that the kids would have a regular place where they meet, but would also have lots of outings. There would be perhaps two subjects each day – like one in the morning from 9 – 12 and then they would have lunch together and then have another subject from 1 – 4.

All of these are just ideas that have been running around in my mind. Is something like this possible? Well, I am not totally sure, but I am beginning to think that it is worth looking in to. So first I thought I would send an email to see if there is any interest from other families. I have a few ideas of spaces that may be available and potential instructors. If there are around 10 kids that are interested, I will do some more research. So if something like this is of interest to your family please drop me an email and let me know how many kids there are and their ages. If you have any ideas around the structure or content of the program, send those too.