Extracurriculars and Balance

This week's blog cruise asks: What extracurricular activities do your children participate in? 

Our extra-curricular activities go in waves – sometimes we have tons of them going on, and, other times, we have just one or two things we are participating in.

Right now, our favorite extracurricular is Tae Kwon Do. The boys and I both go to TKD twice a week. The times we can go are very flexible, which allows us to move TKD around to fit our often hectic schedule. Right now, we are about half way to our high yellow belt. It’s great physical fitness; the principles that are taught are excellent, and the instructor’s are amazing role models for my kids. We feel very blessed to have found  Sangrock.

We are also part of the  Christian Communicators of the South East. This is a speech and debate club that meets weekly. Each week the boys get opportunities to deliver speeches they have written in addition to at least one impromptu opportunity. It’s been great for the self-confidence. We are excited as the competition season starts after the holidays. B will be doing apologetics and public forum while N will be doing apologetics and prose. I’m especially excited they like speech and debate as that was something I loved in high school.

We’ve just joined a support group called Grace. We’ve been in support groups before, but they all seem to focus on younger kids and not pre/teens. We discovered that Grace has many members that are also part of our Thursday co-op. So, we joined up. They have weekly park days that many of the kids like to go to. It’s a good opportunity for kids from the co-op to meet outside of academics.

That’s it for now. We’re considering drama for N again this year. B decided he was done with baseball. High school will start next year, so we’ll have opportunities related to that. B wants to be in Student Council and on the Yearbook staff.

What do your kids participate in? How do you decide the right balance? I see overload as a big issue with homeschooling families.