Home Schooling, Early Years: the Sticky Issue of Socialising.

Productive socialisation while Home Schooling can be tricky, as it can be at school, I's say, now I'd seen how it went over the years for our now 14 year old.  In both places making close friends is a bit of a game of chances. At school the choice is, potentially,  wider, ( though not as broad as it's perceived imho) and of course the danger of your child stopping to be themselves overnight,  is zero, too, on a plus side.

There are absolute plenty of organised activities for Home Schooled kids, at the moment we have time to participate in one of them only, weekly HE Gymnastics.  We started with schooled kids but switched, as it was less crowded and less rushed at the HE alternative.

Over the last few moths we also tried few HE social groups.  Generally, Oliver falls back on the safety of playing with his brother, but finally we found one that runs twice a week with many kids Oliver's age, which both him and his brother enjoy.  So, generally we go for a day there ( with Math , Drama etc activities in the beginning,  the days  runs between 10am - 3pm)

We have another two regular activities we are trying to, and generally do keep to, in a week.  

The first one is a day out with some kind of an educational value.  Our main one is  Discovery centre in Bracknell.  We have a membership to it and both boys  absolutely adore it, so much that they never want to leave.  Most of the time, they, seem to spontaneously fall into some kind of building etc play with some kids who happen to be there for some of the time they are there, which is nice,  ( or occasionally other HE kids who we know, also come along). We also have 'a yearly' to go to Legoland , which was fab up to recently.   And if anyone thinks it's not educational , they haven't explored the geographical and engineering potential of Miniland alone, and FairyTale Brook got Oliver into books, which was not all that bothered about prior to.


Our other regular activity is a regular long playdate.  We have at least one of those a week and Oliver normally meets his friends, most of whom are either friends of the family or ones he met in pre-school playgroups  + there the other home schooled kids, of course.

So this is our socialising.  We are  hoping to squeeze in another activity, something sporty, perhaps swimming or martial arts for Oliver, to give him a bit of a variety over local playground visits and the large trampoline in the garden for sports.   Other than that, allowing for an odd one off HE hook up at some kids farm, etc, we are comfortably 'booked up', I'd say. Not many pics to show.  Taking pics of boys playing with other kids is a bit awkward, same as at school, lol.