Participation in after school activities in elementary?

[Anonymous]

What after school activities has your child’s elementary school had that have been successful? I’ve been trying to bring after school activities to my child’s school, but they keep getting canceled because no one signs their kids up. I’m thinking maybe I’m not looking into the right programs so I wanted some suggestions to see what other schools have done that got a lot of responses. I’m in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Popular afterschool activities in our school include Make a lemonade stand (it's some sort of learn business thing), Joe Romano's Magic, Minecraft with Redstone or something like that, Chess club, Cooking …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Popular afterschool activities in our school include Make a lemonade stand (it's some sort of learn business thing), Joe Romano's Magic, Minecraft with Redstone or something like that, Chess club, Cooking …

Do you know the names of the vendors that offer these?

[Anonymous]

I'm in Fairfax County so YMMV. School programs at our Elementary include Young Rembrandts (art); Overtime Athletics (PE) and a Coding / Robotics program. Those are what I remember, they may be more though. I think price makes a difference -- I am at a Title 1 and my kids got a discount for one program and full "scholarship" for another. Good Luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm in Fairfax County so YMMV. School programs at our Elementary include Young Rembrandts (art); Overtime Athletics (PE) and a Coding / Robotics program. Those are what I remember, they may be more though. I think price makes a difference -- I am at a Title 1 and my kids got a discount for one program and full "scholarship" for another. Good Luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in Fairfax County so YMMV. School programs at our Elementary include Young Rembrandts (art); Overtime Athletics (PE) and a Coding / Robotics program. Those are what I remember, they may be more though. I think price makes a difference -- I am at a Title 1 and my kids got a discount for one program and full "scholarship" for another. Good Luck!

My post didn’t go through! I’m at a Title 1 school too and I thought that might be the reason for the lack of participation. Your post gives me some hope!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Popular afterschool activities in our school include Make a lemonade stand (it's some sort of learn business thing), Joe Romano's Magic, Minecraft with Redstone or something like that, Chess club, Cooking …

Do you know the names of the vendors that offer these?

Spark Business Academy for the lemonade, Play-Well Teknologies and STEM excel. Also, CoderKids for coding, US Chess Center, Ultimate Magic Academy.

[Anonymous]

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

At a Title 1 school, I think a key is to have an after school activities bus. Price will matter, and so will logistics.

[Anonymous]

If they keep getting cancelled for low enrollment, you might try fewer offerings. There is a finite group of kids (parents) who will enroll, so too many offerings mean that participants get too spread out.

Maybe take a survey up front to narrow the group to those most interesting? Or focus on one of each 'type' of activity? (One sports activity, one technology activity, one arts-type activity...)

[Anonymous]

We do a bunch of 8am ones 2-3 days a week plus one day of piano lessons at home at 8am. Then at 3:50pm when school ends they play on playground and walk home. Or are driven to sports practices once a week.

Our ES starts at 9:25am. We both leave for work at 8am. Have an au pair who probably works 20 hours a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they keep getting cancelled for low enrollment, you might try fewer offerings. There is a finite group of kids (parents) who will enroll, so too many offerings mean that participants get too spread out.

Maybe take a survey up front to narrow the group to those most interesting? Or focus on one of each 'type' of activity? (One sports activity, one technology activity, one arts-type activity...)

We usually only try to offer one or two activities at a time. I do like the idea of setting up a survey.

[Anonymous]

we have about 3 enrichment activities (for a fee) offered a day at our after school, typically broken up K-2 and 3-5 so the age range isn't crazy. popular offerings include:
sports: TKD, basketball, hip hop dance, and ballet, yoga, chess
performance arts: school play, glee club,
art: lots of options including clay/pottery, print making, jewelry making
STEM/language, coding, mad science type offering, Spanish language

typically chess, glee club, and STEM offering fill up the fastest

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:we have about 3 enrichment activities (for a fee) offered a day at our after school, typically broken up K-2 and 3-5 so the age range isn't crazy. popular offerings include:
sports: TKD, basketball, hip hop dance, and ballet, yoga, chess
performance arts: school play, glee club,
art: lots of options including clay/pottery, print making, jewelry making
STEM/language, coding, mad science type offering, Spanish language

typically chess, glee club, and STEM offering fill up the fastest

plus the PTA has a scholarship fund so that kids who qualify get to pick 1 free activity per semester if they want so it doesn't become a richer kid only thing.

[Anonymous]

We tried the STEM/language program and hip hop/ballet for the fall. The hip hop/ballet class only had one person register. The STEM/language one didn’t get anyone.