No Child Left Behind - Homeschool Style

Yesterday I found out what the meaning of "No Child Left Behind" is to homeschool parents.

A local Christian school had the day off yesterday, and one of the members of our little homeschool group was babysitting 10 of the students that had the day off. We used to go to the church attached to the homeschool, so my daughter and I know all the kids at that school. One of the girls attending the school is my daughter's best friend, so she was really happy that her best friend had the day off.

So yesterday all of us had a park day. 10 kids from the Christian school, my 2 kids, and 4 other kids that normally go to the homeschool group. So we had 16 kids.

We all met at the main house where we normally meet, and all the kids either walked, rode in a stroller, rode in the van, or rode bicycles to the nearby park. We took a picnic lunch and toys. We had quite a bike parade!

For the homeschool parent, No Child Left Behind means making sure that no child gets left behind when you have 16 children walking or biking to the park... and making sure that no child gets left behind when returning home. Or toy.

Any parent that thinks that homeschoolers get no socialization doesn't know what sort of socialization homeschoolers can have. Our park day crowd of kids looked like any group of kids you might find at any day care center in the country... only none of the teachers had to make sure the kids weren't biting, spitting, climbing up the slide, etc. (I worked at a day care center for two years). The kids ranged from 11 months to 8 or 9 years too, so there was probably a wider age range than would be playing at the typical day care center playground.

In a typical week, my daughter attends church 3 times, goes to the library with other kids, sees her soccer friends twice a week, and goes to her homeschool group. Not to mention trips to the grocery store, doctors, or anywhere else we might happen to go. She doesn't seem to lack friends. As an added bonus, she usually gets along with her brother pretty well (unless he's trying to play with the mouse or keyboard while she's trying to play computer games).