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We live in a very small town in rural Quebec, with a permanent population of about 1,500. As such, we are the only homeschooling family in the entire township. When we first started homeschooling, the nearest homeschoolers were people we already knew who lived 45 minutes away and across the US border… and they’ve since moved to Nova Scotia.
So how did we find other homeschoolers? The first thing I did was look online. I found as many homeschooling forums as I possibly could and posted messages stating where we live, what “geographical radius” we’re looking for, how many kids we have and their ages.
I found 0 homeschoolers.
I waited a few months and tried again.
Nothing.
Eventually, someone 20 minutes away posted at a forum saying they were looking for homeschoolers in our region. That has worked out extremely well – we meet with them every week and have developed a priceless friendship over the last three years. However, their kids are more our daughter’s age and younger, so our son was still feeling a bit lonely. Homeschooled boys over the age of six are a rarity around here.
Since our children have been in public school, we have no reason to remain “under the radar”. So I decided to try putting up posters. I kept the text brief so as not to turn anyone off who might choose a different homeschooling style, or who might be looking for kids of a different age, etc. For now, I just wanted to see who was out there, get to know each other and build a community. The only thing I wrote on the poster was:
Homeschoolers!
Seeking families interested in group activities.
Contact Kim at (555) 555-5555.
I created an area at the bottom where people could tear off a tab with my name and phone number on it. (Of course, here in Quebec the poster has to be bilingual, so it wasn’t as bare as it might seem!)
I put the poster up in the following locations:
• Every library within the region that I was willing to drive to for events/outings
• Health Food stores
• Pharmacies
• Grocery stores
• Banks
The library is the most important location for the simple fact that no matter what method of homeschooling families choose and no matter what their reasons for homeschooling, most homeschoolers use the library unfailingly! I chose to put posters up at Health Food stores because people who homeschool tend to make alternative choices. The other locations were chosen purely because everyone uses them and I hoped to hit the largest audience that way.
I received two calls from those posters. One was from a family with children exactly our kids’ ages. That worked out well for a while, but they too have since moved away. The other family has younger children, but they’re great people and we have been so happy to connect with them.
It’s taken some time, but by finding those first few families, through them, we’ve now connected with two groups. One is a group of 15 relatively new homeschooling families (mostly with young children) 20 minutes from us. The other is an established group with 45 families about an hour from here. While we won’t drive an hour every week to meet with them, we’ve joined their Yahoo group so that we can learn about activities and join those that are close or are particularly interesting. We also make sure to post activities we’re planning, in the event that any of them feel like driving out our way.
We are also not shy to go outside the homeschooling community. Homeschoolers are always our first choice because not only do they tend to be like-minded people, but their schedules are more flexible for activities and outings. Our children have both participated in after school programs run by the local youth centre, which has helped keep them from feeling so isolated.
Our son is now back in public school, in part due to the lack of homeschooled boys in the area, but I’m confident that with these new connections we’ve made recently, that our daughter will continue to thrive and enjoy learning in the home environment.
I wish you the best of luck in your homeschooling journey!
