I have some questions and I could not find an individual email to send them to, so I am posting them here, i hope that is okay.
I am a stay at home mother of one (21mo.) son and I babysit on a regular basis another 21mo. old boy. Are there activities geared to this age group or should we wait a year and check back? Would it be okay to bring the child I babysit or is it only for children and their parents? How many people are currently in the co-op? Any other information that any of you think would be helpful?
What I think is that the co-op is primarily for families where the parents have decided to homeschool their children -- that is, they've decided their kids will most likely not be attending kindergarten or elementary school. We aren't just a large scale playgroup. Most of the people in our group have at least one school-aged child (age 4+) and many also have younger toddlers and babies.
It wasn't clear to me from your post whether you intend to homeschool, and whether the other child you take care of will be homeschooled. If so, you're certainly welcome to come to any of our events. Probably the ones most enjoyable for toddlers are park days, trips to the zoo and aquarium, and things like that. We often do those types of outings. The idea is to give our homeschooled kids a chance to make early friendships with other kids who will be homeschooled, as well as some social support for the adults!
There are currently about 50 families registered on this message board, who are receiving weekly updates about our activities. Nowhere near that many families actually come to any given event. We consider it a big crowd to get half a dozen at a time.
Oh I am sorry, Yes, I am planning on homeschooling my son, as a matter of fact I have already begun a preschool curriculum (about 15-30min a day). The other child I watch participates in the projects I set up now and will be involved in the preschool activities I do until he reaches Kindergarden age. Considering both his parents work full time and I watch him 40-50 hrs a week, I am assuming he will be attending a regular school, either public or private, once he turns 5.
I will try to find an activity that seems age appropriate and come and check it out, thank you for the answers.