Kid Activities

 Peter hanging out with me while Claire is at her painting class.  Peter gets to have some screen time (a rare treat!) and play the Khan Academy app on the kindle while she is at class so he looks forward to it as much as she does :)!

This is the first year we've really entered the realm of kid activities.  Claire took ballet once a week when she was 3 (she turned 4 midway in the season).  She was not interested in taking ballet again the next year and instead wanted to try piano.  So she took piano the next year starting in September when she was 4 (she turned 5 in January).  We didn't do the traditional preschool route with her and instead did a combination of homeschool preschool + the waterford upstart program with her.  Then this year she started kindergarten and we've added more activities for both her and Peter.  

Claire has half day kindergarten 5 days a week.  Since she would be gone every morning Mon-Fri and is Peter's only sibling we felt like it would be better for him to do a more traditional preschool program so he had more opportunities to socialize and play with kids his age.  He goes to preschool 2 mornings a week and Bryce also takes him to the treehouse museum one morning a week when they do a preschool/early literacy program.  Claire continued to take piano lessons this year until her teacher moved away in October.  

We're lucky enough to have a community center near where we live that offers tons of kids classes and activities.  The first class we tried there was a 6 week arts and crafts in the fall for Claire that she loved.  Currently Peter is playing soccer there once a week and Claire is taking a painting class and a piano class.  Peter had no interest in taking any of the art classes haha.  And Claire was not interested in any of the sports, until going to Peter's soccer games.  Now she wants to maybe try soccer the next session.  

My kids really enjoy when we have at least a few scheduled activities to look forward to throughout the week, and they seem to behave better if we aren't stuck at home constantly.  I think it's so good for them to have the opportunity to try lots of activities and figure out what they like.  I also really love the 6 week option that way if they end up not liking an activity they chose they are not stuck doing it for months on end and only have to stick it out for 6 weeks.  We haven't decided exactly how we'll structure and handle kid activities as they get older.  I'm thinking we'll try to have them both do one physical activity (sports, dance, etc.) and one musical or art activity.  For now we are all really enjoying our current set up and I'm curious to see what activities they get involved in as they grow!