Our city is very homeschool-friendly, if that makes sense. We have tons of homeschool families around. Our church is full of homeschool families. We have many homeschool groups and co-ops that you can join.

However, our city was very much lacking in one department: a preschool homeschool group.

The homeschool groups that are already established require you to at least have a Kindergartener to join.

A courageous friend of mine (who also has preschoolers and is homeschooling!) stepped up to the plate and decided she would start her own Preschool Homeschool Group!

We have joined this group and my friend has done an absolutely phenomenal job of organizing this group and I feel SO BLESSED to be a part of it!

In early September there was an informational meeting where the plan for the entire school year was shared with us and it was absolutely amazing! I knew after leaving that meeting this was definitely a group I wanted my girls to join!

Our group meets one time per week and it’s not mandatory to attend all activities, which I appreciate because I do not like to over plan for my little ones!

There are Field Trips where we will go into the city and explore certain attractions like the zoo, a nature center and the fire station. And then there are Activity Days where we all meet up at someone’s house where the host has prepared an activity for the children to participate in.

The girls and I went to our first Activity Day a couple weeks ago and we all had such a wonderful time! It was at our leader’s house and, as usual, she had done an excellent job in preparing an educational, engaging, FUN activity for all the children! You would think 15 or so children five years old all the way to a several little babies would be MASS CHAOS, but it truly wasn’t!

She was so organized and Little Bug and Sweet Pea both enjoyed the story, music and craft that had been planned!

Then just last week we went on our first Field Trip outing to a nature preserve! I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this group.

I’m just going to go ahead and bring up the whole “socialization” topic again since we are talking “homeschool groups”. Socialization truly is a non-issue with homeschooling! In fact, I dare say that homeschoolers are getting more organic socialization than they would sitting in a classroom all day long!

Little Bug and Sweet Pea got to interact with children their ages and children that were several years younger and several years older than them. That is real life! No where else in society do we group people according to geographical location and age!

Little Bug is “socialized” every day by being around her family, going out in the city and running errands with Mom (or Dad), going out on special outings (like to the park – where she ALWAYS makes a new friend – or the library), ballet class, AWANAs at church, playdates, and now, our homeschool group.

I’ve already been asked “What about socialization?” and we are barely into our first year of homeschool! I guess this is something that I am going to have to deal with for many years to come! I guess I should come up with a one sentence answer that makes me people leave me alone about it!

Any good ones, Homeschool Moms?!

- Elaine