Yukon Girl: The Homeschool Social in Tagish

There is a new program that has started in Tagish, it’s called the Homeschool Social. I interviewed the recreation director, Colin Hickman, and three Penner brothers who go to the social: Dalton (8), Dawson (7), and Alex (5).

The Homeschool Social is a program a lot like the ones in Whitehorse, called Learning Lions and Busy Bison. They take place every week at the Tagish Centre on Mondays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and involve lots of activities.

The first thing they do there is called Destination Imagination, which is led by Jennifer Daniels. Destination Imagination is an educational program where students team up to solve problems. For example, they once tried to make a freestanding tower or house out of only 20 pieces of 8.5 x 11 sheets of white paper.

Destination Imagination usually takes about half an hour.

After Destination Imagination there is a special activity that can be different every week. Once per month they have a music lesson, another time they do some crafts like making yarn. On special occasions they have a field trip, such as to go bird watching or trapping, and in the winter sometimes they will go skating. This activity takes around one hour.

After that they have snacks that the moms bring, which lasts 20 minutes, including clean up.

And last but not least all the kids have free time and do whatever they want, such as go outside and play or, if a holiday is coming up, the Homeschool Social group stays inside and decorates the Tagish Centre.

The kids I talked to say they like everything, but would like to play basketball, too. They especially like painting during crafts and playing with their friends during free time.

The home schoolers in Tagish also go to a lot of other programs. In regards to children/youth programs, there is the CATCH Kids Club. It takes place every Thursday from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. CATCH (Coordinated Approach to Child Health) Kids Club is a program for kids that encourages them to move and eat healthy.

They also have a program called Kids in the Kitchen where kids have fun learning how to cook.

They have a jam session, too, led by Colin Hickman, every Thursday from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

At the moment around half of the homeschoolers in Tagish come to the Home School Social; two kids come from Crag Lake. If you live around Tagish, I think you should go check it out, it sounds like a lot of fun.

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