After School Clubs Foster Fun and Friends

Tips for starting your very own club 

    When the school bell rings, do your kids run to the TV or video games? After a hard day at school, students need some R & R, but it doesn’t have to come with a plug! Savvy moms can start an After School Club to inspire new hobbies and skills, while creating lasting relationships with their kids.

How to Start a Club: 

    You can host the club once or twice a week and invite as many kids as you like. The number of guests will likely grow as your club succeeds. One mom can host a club for several kids, or several moms can team up to divide the work. When I was growing up, my mom and one of her friends swapped Fridays: two families, four kids. We’d explore art projects or music with my mom and gardening or hiking at our friend’s house. The mom with the week off would run errands and take a break. We kids were learning skills from another adult and building friendships…the perfect win-win situation! 

    The best clubs have a purpose or a theme. For inspiration, start with your skills and interests, the kids’ hobbies or a just-for-fun theme!

Ideas for Your After School Club: 

• Photography Club: Start a photography club and teach techniques for taking and developing the best photos. Look at professional photography and study lighting, contrast and backgrounds. Hold contests for the most original photos each week and help the kids create scrapbooks.
• Garden Club: Help the kids create container gardens or give them each a square in your garden. Cultivate green thumbs as you pass on all the tricks of the trade. Then, create culinary delights. Help junior herb gardeners create the best pesto or vegetable gardeners concoct the best vegetable soup. Plant a pumpkin patch and host a carving competition in October! You’ll be sharing skills that last a lifetime and the kids will take pride in growing and harvesting their own food.
• Fashion Club: Do you have a background in fashion, style or makeup? Teen girls love expert tips! Start a fashion club and help girls select clothes and makeup that are flattering and stylish. Teach budget shopping and accessorizing techniques.
• Nutrition Club: Each week, introduce a new healthy and delicious recipe. Teach the kids to read labels and make good choices. Create healthy smoothies, trail mix or cookies as you tempt young taste buds with delicious foods they’ll enjoy.
• American Girl Club: Each month invite the girls to read about a new doll, make recipes and crafts from her books, watch films or visit local museums in her time period. For Molly, visit the Truman Presidential Library. For Kirsten, visit the Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop or John Wornall House Museum. For Addy, visit the Black Archives of Mid-America or the Quindaro Underground Railroad. Julie loves saving animals; take the girls to Cedar Cove Feline Sanctuary. For Samantha, take a trip to the Liberty Memorial to learn about World War I. Visit the American Jazz Museum to sample Kit’s time period. For Rebecca, visit the C.W. Parker Carousel Museum or the Vaile Mansion in Independence. Take the girls on a journey through time as they read about their favorite characters.
• Art Club: Are you raising a budding Picasso? Create your own craft closet with inexpensive supplies from the Recycled Materials Center at Wonderscope or the discount bins at Michael’s, JoAnn’s and Hobby Lobby. Introduce a new project each week or let the kids spend a great deal of time on one masterpiece. For inspiration, explore Mary Ann Kohl’s art books and Usborne’s Big Book of Art Ideas.
• Lego Club: Legos are downright addictive, but that’s okay… they are also one of the best toys for building a young imagination! Each week provide a new theme (i.e. outer space, under the sea, zany creations) and let the young architects create! Take photos and create a digital slideshow. If you have space, set up a Lego museum exhibiting the best creations.
• Classic Movie Club: Do your kids think E.T. and Karate Kid are classic films? Visit the library to check out true classics on DVD. Then, introduce a new one each week. Watch family classics like Pollyanna, Herbie the Love Bug, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Nutty Professor. Or, go for cinema treasures like Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and Ben Hur. Watch behind the scenes info and learn about original special effects. How did Cecil B. DeMille create the parting of the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments? How did they create the tornado in the Wizard of Oz? Discuss characters and plots. Let the audience choose films and take a cinematic journey they won’t forget!
• Ethnic Cooking Club: Explore ethnic recipes and make dinner at the same time! To get you started, check out Kids Around the World Cook!:The Best Foods and Recipes from Many Lands or The Around the World Cookbook.
• “Games That Don’t Require Batteries” Club: Play your favorite board games, invite the guests to bring some of their own and serve snacks! We love Apples to Apples, Cranium, Scattergories, and classics like Monopoly, Scrabble and Pictionary.
• Cupcake Club: Each week, bake a new batch of cupcakes or muffins and decorate them. Try new recipes and decorating techniques. Let each baker take home enough to share. Rate the recipes for flavor, consistency, creativity, and style! For great ideas, check out Hello, Cupcake!: Irresistibly Playful Creations Anyone Can Make or Crazy About Cupcakes.

10 More Club Ideas: 

• Drama / Reader’s Theater Club 
• Volunteer Club 
• Exercise Club 
• Sewing Club 
• Poetry Club 
• Animal Lovers/ Training Club 
• Klutz How-To Book Club 
• Bake and Take Club 
• Book Club 
• Dance Club 

    Can’t decide? More than one theme is tempting? No problem! Choose a new club theme each month. Remember your goal is having fun, learning new things and building relationships. Create an After School Club the entire neighborhood will love and before long you’ll have the coolest house on the block!

Kristina Light and her husband, Ron, live in Kansas with their two daughters and are anxiously awaiting the birth of baby #3.