Part of getting your homeschool students to interact with peers is making new friends. One of the easiest ways to do this is to get in touch with other homeschooling families in the area and set up a play or study date for the homeschool students. Ideally one family will travel to the other family’s homeschool classroom and everyone will learn together. If you are meeting everyone for the first time, it would be handy to have a few games and icebreakers to ensure everyone gets to know everyone in a fun and relaxed environments.
The Unique Me
Everyone stands up and a single person makes a statement like “I brushed my teeth this morning.” Then whoever did not brush their teeth that morning gets to sit down. Another statement can be I ate cereal for breakfast, or I drank a chocolate milkshake today. The idea is to start with saying something common that a person has done and moving on till it leaves just the one person.
If you have teenagers you can make it even more of a unique game. For instance the statements could include things like I play the guitar, or I play chess. Sometimes a unique statement can even include something like I have four brothers. Each child gets to use one statement to proclaim their uniqueness. The longer they get to stand in the game, the better.
The Counting Game
The participants have to count the numbers from one till twenty. The only rule is that they can not go in order. They have to shout out random numbers like 8, 15, 3 and so on till all the twenty numbers have been called out. If at anytime two homeschool students call out a number at the same time, the game restarts. It can take an extraordinarily long time to count till twenty.
Do ensure that one of the homeschool parents keeps track of the numbers called out in each section of the game. It will avoid clashes and actually help the game to end on a positive note. By the end of the game you will have a class full of enthusiastic and energetic children.
