Valley Home Educators

Friday Park Days

2nd and 4th Fridays, September to May. Park Days are open to everyone, member or not, so come visit and meet our group! (Note we meet in September but usually NOT at the park - too hot! Please email for info.)

Friday Events & Activities

1st & 3rd Fridays, September to May. Field trips, which vary throughout the year, are for VHE members and are posted on the Yahoo group calendar and by email. The vast majority of our field trips fall on Friday afternoon, or occasionally Friday morning. We will rarely hold group field trips on other days, or on evenings or weekends, simply because our members as a group prefer to hold Fridays open and schedule for their own families on other days.

Tweens-n-Teens

VHE Tweens-n-Teens meets Fridays for all VHE member children who are age 11 and up. Please see our TnT page for more info.

Kids' Clubs

During our planning meeting we decide on clubs or co-ops to offer during park days. These may be for younger kids, older kids, or general interest. All members are welcome to create other, smaller co-ops or event groups to suit their needs outside of group time - for instance families with similar-aged children might form a science co-op on Wednesdays, or several families interested in languages might form a Spanish club on Tuesdays.

2008-09 VHE Clubs & Co-ops: ABC Fun, TnT Book Club, Games Club, Elementary Art Co-op. These free co-op clubs are conducted by member parents and are open to members. For those interested, we also have a group hike most weeks at different locations around the Valley.

Recitals

We have found the one thing we honestly cannot provide in our homeschools is public speaking opportunities, so about every 6 weeks we offer a talent show (recitals, show and tell) for any interested children. All ages are welcome to participate, down to the toddlers! This may include anything from playing an instrument to giving a book report to show-and-tell to telling jokes - anything within reason that your child wants to do or show! And we always need willing audience members if your child does not want to perform. In fact we have had several non-performers make decisions to get up and join the fun after several months - or even a year - of watching their friends! In 2007-2008 we began performing recitals at a senior center and hope to expand on that relationship in the 2008-2009 year.

Planning Meetings

ALL active parents are welcome at the meeting and everyone's input is valued! We hold two planning meetings each year. In May we review the year and decide what we want to keep doing and what we want to drop or add for the fall, plan for summer break, and start gathering ideas for fall. In January we have a short session to plan out further field trips and events for the spring semester.