Now that October is upon us, the school year is back in full swing. In some areas, Parent-Teacher Conferences may already have come and gone. As we shift away from Summer Reading and into school-year plans and activities and libraries, I noticed that one group of families is often left out of the conversation: Home School Families.
This summer, I hosted several educational programs that garnered interest from local families who follow a homeschool educational model. At these daytime programs, we would chat about the benefits of socialization with other families and participating in educational experiences in the community. I took what these families were sharing and decided to commit to finding programming that worked for them this school year.
While traditional afterschool programming does include all members of the community, I thought that a program designed specifically for homeschool families would have more success. For this reason, beginning in October, I added a day time program to our calendar that targeted this population.
The program is currently titled, “Home-School Connection,” and aims to provide an educational activity for families as well as a place for them to come and connect with one another. So far, I have had two families attend, and they greatly enjoyed it! They shared that they loved being able to chat with another family who “gets it.” While the parents and caregivers in attendance chatted, I was able to lead the kids in attendance through a weaving activity for Hispanic Heritage Month. At the end of the program, the participants were already sharing ideas for our next session.
When I began researching this topic, I did not find many resources for librarians who want to offer support for homeschool families. If your library currently has an offering, what does it look like? What times of day do you find work best? What age ranges attend? I’d love to expand our offerings to make sure that everyone feels welcome in our spaces and programs!
Featured image courtesy of Kaboompics.
This post addresses ALSC Core Competencies 1.6 and 1.7.
Annaliese Melvin (she/they) is a children’s librarian at a neighborhood library in Washington, D.C. Originally from Pennsylvania, she moved to the DC-area in 2020 to become a special education teacher after graduating with her bachelor’s from Arcadia University. In 2023, she graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a master’s degree in Library and Information Science and transitioned into the library field. Annaliese currently works to bring more inclusive programming to DC Public Libraries for children of all ages. She is passionate about equity, inclusion, reading, and Philadelphia sports.
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