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Find Your Tribe: How to start a homeschool support group {+ a FREE download}

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We all need to find our tribe. A tribe is a group of people with similar beliefs, customs, and ideas – people whose way of life is very similar to one another. For many homeschooling families, our tribe is our homeschool support group. That support group may be the formal variety, with meetings and dues, or it may be a few families who get together for play dates and group outings.

It can often take a while to find just the right support group – and sometimes, you may even need to start your own. Are you scratching your head wondering how to start a homeschool support group? I’ve got tips!

Tips for starting a homeschool support group plus a free download of activity ideas and planning tips.

Decide what type of support group you’d like to offer.

There are support groups that have regular monthly meetings, complete with speakers. There are those that offer co-ops, field trips, play dates, and classes. There are religious, secular, formal, and informal. The first step to successfully launching your own support group is to decide what your goals are.

The homeschool group that some friends and I started years ago was the perfect match for our personalities – very informal. We knew that we wanted a group for communicating mostly via email and offering our kids a chance to get together and play since our children were all under 10 at the time.

We started by setting up a Yahoo group and inviting a few moms that each of us knew.

If you wish to start a more formal group, you may want to consider things like:

  • Will you be offering a faith-based or secular group?
  • If you’ll be offering a faith-based group, will you want to establish a statement of faith?
  • Will there be dues? If so, you’ll need a treasurer and a bank account.
  • Will there be officers? If so, how will they be selected and how long will they serve?
  • How often will you meet and where?

Find a place to meet.

One of the biggest challenges for most fledgling homeschool groups is finding a place to meet. For the purposes of our informal group, our initial meeting place was typically a local playground – indoor or outdoor, depending on the weather. Other options may include:

  • Churches
  • Community event rooms, such as a rec center, gymnasium, or voting precinct
  • Libraries
  • Homes of members
  • Restaurant or hotel meeting rooms
  • Bookstores
  • Coffee houses

Get the word out.

If you’re going to start a homeschool support group, you’re going to want to let people know. So, how do you go about getting the word out? As I mentioned, with our group, we initially started out by just inviting moms that each of us knew. Word-of-mouth among homeschoolers is second to none.

Soon, we realized that there was a great need for a group such as ours (email-based, allowing moms to find encouragement and support nearly any time of the day or night) in our area. So, we added our listing to the local homeschool support group newsletter, published by the local branch of our state-wide support group.

Other places to advertise your local group include:

  • Community bulletin boards at churches, libraries, or bookstores
  • Your state support group’s newsletter or website
  • Local moms groups, such as MOPS or La Leche League
  • Facebook – Start a Facebook page or group and ask your friends to share on their pages

Because we were an email-based Yahoo group, we also had many people find us by searching for support groups by city or state. This was especially helpful for homeschool families moving to our area from out-of-state. We had many families who connected with us via email prior to their move. By the time they were settled in their new home, they already had connections and were ready to start meeting up and making in-person friendships.

Plan events.

Our first off-line events were play dates for our kids. Soon we were enjoying mom’s nights out at local restaurants and, before long, planning bigger, more organized outings for our kids. Events can include:

  • Field trips
  • Parties – for holidays throughout the year or end-of-the-year and back-to-school parties
  • Family events
  • Science and social studies fairs
  • Community service projects

Over that last decade or so, I’ve planned dozens of events for our local homeschool group and I am happy to share those ideas with you! I have put together a 22-page guide to planning activities for your homeschool group – whether it be a formal group of a few hundred or an informal group of a few families.

52 Weeks of Homeschool Group Activities offers an idea for each week of the year, loosely organized by season, along with planning tips for events and field trips. I’m offering this resource as a free download to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers subscribers.

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To get your copy of 52 Weeks of Homeschool Group Activities for free, just enter your email address below to subscribe. You’ll receive an email with download instructions. By subscribing you will be added to the WUHS Daily Updates email list. You may also receive occasional offers (no more than two a month) sent from Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Your privacy is important to me, and I will never sell your email address. You may unsubscribe or update your subscription preferences (such as changing to a Weekly Digest option) at any time. 

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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20 Comments

  1. FB group set to private has been my best way to organize and communicate with my group. I plan two events a month; a mom’s night out and a field trip.

  2. This is a great list! I started our homeschool group with just me and 2 other moms. Now, 3 years later we have 55 families. I couldn’t imagine homeschooling WITHOUT our homeschool group. One thing I will add is that as your homeschool group grows, don’t be afraid to ask for help and to delegate some responsibilities. This will keep you from getting burnt out!

    1. Hi,
      We are also trying to start a homeschool group.
      Did you start a non profit group or LLC, or how did you go about budget, taxes, reserving rights to terminate members should they not align with your views and policies etc.
      How about insurance? Waiver to not hold group responsible should an accident happen etc?
      Are we over thinking this?

      Thank you so much for any advice!
      Blessings
      Camilla

  3. Love this! We are in an area with no group right now and I am missing the community we once had. If I can get over my social awkwardness maybe I’ll try starting my own group! 😉

    1. Please email me at weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers at charter dot net and let me know how you subscribe (RSS feed or email) and on which type of device you’re trying to download the ebook. I’ll be happy to help you troubleshoot the problem. Thanks!

  4. You have such GREAT things on your site.
    I would like to download this resource (trying to subscribe) and it is not working for me.
    I am using my email to subscribe.
    When I click on the blue bar that says “click here to subscribe for your free download” it doesn’t go anywhere. 🙁 Help?

    1. Hmmm…I’m not sure why it quit working, but I’ve made some changes and it seems to be working again now. Thanks for letting me know. Please let me know if you have any other problems with the download.

  5. Hello,
    So when I googled ‘homeschool group in my area’ nothing came up. I’m new to my area and haven’t actually met anyone yet that homeschools. How should I go about finding homeschoolers to begin with? I’m afraid that if I create a yahoo group no-one will see it. I guess I need to put flyers somewhere….

    1. I didn’t receive a question about your subscription. I did find your email address on my subscriber list. You are listed as unconfirmed which typically means that you did not click on the link in the confirmation email to confirm your subscription.

      1. OK. Thanks for reply my comment quickly I was checking the links that you send me but I can’t find an option to write a password, my question is about the password that I need in order to download the material that is for subscribers, I apologize if I didn’t make myself understood, but until now I am learning English.
        Thanks in advance Kris

        1. Hi, Paula. I have manually confirmed your subscription. After that, you should have received an email containing the password that you need to access the subscriber freebies page. I hope that helps!

  6. Any thoughts on naming my new group? I live in Las Vegas and there are a ton of groups here so I want our name to say a little about the type of group we have.

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