Making Contact

On-line, there are some great resources for meeting others… Through http://www.epals.com we have met many other families and the older two girls now enjoy sending and receiving e-mails and photo files. After a time, some epals have developed into regular penfriends and the children send letters and parcels across the world too. We recently discovered the Flat Stanley Project, which is based on the Flat Stanley books by Jeff Brown. Children print out or draw a Flat Stanley, make a Travel Log for him and send him with some news to other participants around the globe. To find other homeschoolers involved in the project, choose HMSCH in the Grade field when defining whom you’d like to contact. The web site is http://www.flatstanleyproject.net and has lots of information for participants.

There are a plethora of on-line web sites for finding penfriends that I have not tried. Simply type "penfriend children homeschool" or similar into a search engine such as http://www.google.com and surf your way to global contacts!

If your children are lonely or bored, sometimes a penfriend or epal may provide the contact they are craving. It sure differs from being in class with up to 30+ age peers for five days a week, can be more rewarding and very educationally enriching. So, next time someone is lamenting the socialisation aspect of home based learning, have them consider just how many wonderful opportunities are out there for our children to meet others – why be limited to the four walls of a classroom?

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