First Homeschool Outing

I finally found a web group that had information on homeschooling resources in our area.  Rhiannon and I met up with some local families at the library for Story Time yesterday afternoon and I think we did pretty well for first-timers.  Most of the kids were older than Rhiannon, two or three her age, and a few younger than her.  Being the newbies, we waited in the background to see what everyone else was doing.  The kids each grabbed a padded mat & sat down in the front of the room while the parents crammed their bums into the child-sized chairs and put diaper bags & purses on the toddler-sized tables. 

The theme for this week was President’s Day.  A short film on the origination of President’s Day started it off & then the librarian read a short story about George Washington.  We didn’t make it to page two of the book as Rhiannon had taken to running around the perimeter of the room, opening all the cabinets & collecting the little buckets of crayons.  Trying not to cause more of a disturbance, I picked her up, put the crayon buckets back as best I could, then went out to the main section of the Children’s Library.  After a few minutes, another mom & her toddler came out.  And shortly after, another anxious toddler & mom.  So at least I wasn’t the only parent who couldn’t contain their kid to the activity room.  We went back in to join the others when they started craft time.  Colorful crayon drawings of George Washington, red, white & blue paper stars for gluing together to make necklaces, moms snatching glue sticks from toddlers before they were consumed.  All in all, I thought it was a nice outing and we’re going to try to go at least every other week.  I know she isn’t really ready to sit down & listen to a story for a half hour, but at least I can get her used to the idea of going there and maybe she’ll imitate the other kids being “good” and sitting still.

Afterwards, some of the families meet at a local park for lunch & to let the kids run around.   Rhiannon seemed like she could use some more outdoor time so we went with.  I met three or four moms & their children (I’ve already forgotten names) and I’m hoping to be able to network more now that I have found a local group.  I’d like to eventually have a music tutor for Rhiannon and I’d also like to see if anyone would be interested in having a monthly get-together to discuss homeschooling outings or classes.  There are so many outdoor activities around here that I’m sure there would be plenty of people interested once the weather starts warming up. 

In the meantime, I think I’m going to take Rhiannon outside for some “Livestock Waste Management” classes.  Hey……I wonder if I could get a bunch of kids over here for a “class” like that?  Free child labor, yeah!