Two main ideas prompted me to create Enrichment Day:
1. Connection: Homeschooled teens often struggle with feeling disconnected from their peers. They often crave more opportunities to see their friends and have a change of pace from the regular at-home school schedule. For many families, this need for peer connections can become a deal-breaker on homeschooling through the high school years. We can do better for our teens!
2. Flexibility: Some homeschool co-ops for middle and high schoolers come with an entire curriculum and pace that is pre-determined. For families that want to choose their own curriculum, set their own pace, need to address remedial issues or learning difficulties, and need built-in flexibility, this might not be a good fit. Enrichment Day will provide some good enrichment classes that you probably aren't already doing at home, and many are better experienced with a group. However, these are stand-alone classes that will not compete with your regular curriculum!
My vision and hope for Enrichment Day:
*An opportunity for a small group of middle and high school students to get together regularly through the school year for some good academic opportunities, as well as to spend time with friends.
*A schedule that allows for flexibility and collaboration for the students and instructor. This will including flexing on amount of time spent on each subject during Enrichment Day, possibly changing the order that we do things, adjusting art projects according to the wishes of the group, and so forth. No, it won't be chaotic. Yes, it will give the students a voice in their own process, and give all of us space to adjust things as we see the need for it.
*Classes that fill in gaps that probably aren't getting done at home.
*Classes that don't add any homework or prep time burdens. (The most prep I am envisioning for our students is to take time to select 1-2 poems to share each week, and possibly finding objects to use in our art projects. That's all.)
*Classes are confined to Enrichment Day, and that don't crowd into your regular curriculum and school work.