I have been homeschooling consistently for the past 4 years, and I have found the most valuable asset to myself and my children is our friends. We THRIVE when we are surrounded by our fun and inspirational community of friends. I feel lucky to have found some wonderful life long mama friends that share my same family values. Together, we support each other and love on everyones kids. I’m sure I’ll look back on this time when I’m older and feel so much love and fond memories about these super special mamas that I’m currently spending so much time with.

Below, I’ve gathered a few ideas on how to find your own community of lovely homeschooling mamas. Additionally, If you’d like to head to the comments section, you can comment the general area where you’re located to see if there’s anyone else reading this blog near you.

Join the Wild + Free online community and search for a group near you on their website

This is my number one recommendation, as it’s the exact way that I found my incredible group of homeschooling best friends. The very first thing that I did when I became immensely inspired to homeschool was read the book The Call of the Wild + Free by Ainsley Arment (the homeschooling mother that started the Wild + Free community). Of course, that book rocked my world and confirmed that I absolutely did want to get started on my homeschool journey. I knew that all of our success relied on finding a wonderful community of homeschooled kids and their mothers. Luckily, the Wild + Free website makes it super easy to find groups in your area to join. I have been actively participating in our W+F group weekly for the past three years and I can easily say that it is the highlight of my homeschooling journey so far.

Search on FaceBook: “[name of your area] Homeschool Group”

This is a super easy way to join a group today, create a post introducing yourself and your child(ren), and request to plan a park day to meet some new homeschooling friends. I have chatted with a bunch of moms in local FB groups and I do believe it to be a great way to get to know other homeschooling families.

Come join me on Instagram where we chat daily about homeschooling and adventuring with kids!

In your local Mom Group on facebook, ask if anyone homeschools or knows of people that they could connect you with.

Continuing with the option above, if you can’t find a local homeschool group on FaceBook, try asking in a local Mom Group, Buy, Sell, Trade Group, or on another community forum page. More likely than not, there will be someone out there that knows another homeschooling family to connect you to.

Google your local homeschool charter school. Browse their website and see if they have a family meet-and-greet night or another activity that you could attend with other homeschooling families.

If joining a homeschool charter school is of interest to you, you can also reach out to your assigned teacher and ask if there are other families they can introduce you to or if there are community events that you can join.

Sign up for classes during regular school hours and meet other kids that are also available during the day.

I have found that many popular group classes and activities accommodate homeschooled children with a daytime schedule option (this could also be because I’m in California where homeschooling is decently popular enough to accommodate this). For example, a local company that provides surf lessons has classes and camps specifically for homeschoolers that would like to surf in the morning instead of after-school classes.

Go out and do your favorite activities in the middle of the day

Go have fun with the kids at places like: the trampoline park, splash pad, community pool, bowling, farms that are open to the public, the beach, popular hiking trails, coffee shops, the Public Library, Art-From-Scrap Center, playgrounds, Natural History Museums, etc. Make a routine of it and go around the same time / same day each week. Look around and see who else is there around the same time. Are there older kids (meaning: not just toddlers who wouldn’t be in school yet) and their parents that you can go start a conversation with? I used to find it intimidating to start a conversation with a parent that I didn’t already know, but I always appreciated it so much when someone (or their child) would come talk to me and ask if we were homeschoolers too.

I hope these tips were helpful to you! Make sure you hop on my email list (on the bottom of this page) to stay in the loop about homeschooling and adventuring with kids!

xx,

Kaleigh