14.9.17

How many extra-curricular activities do your kids do?

Since it's September and everything seems to be starting up again, I thought I'd pose this question. I feel like half of my random tasks include permission slips, signing the kids up for x, y, z, and figuring out our new schedule with the added hours of school and extra-curriculars. Here's where we landed.


For me, swimming is a non-negotiable. Our kids will all be in swimming lessons until they are strong swimmers. It's a life skill, it's a safety issue, it's one of the lowest impact forms of exercise and the sport with the least amount of injuries. Once the kids are strong swimmers, it also opens up so many doors for other sports - diving, life guarding, synchronized swimming, water polo, etc. I'm also biased because I participated in every activity that I just mentioned as a kid and teen, and I still absolutely love swimming, but even my husband who is less aquatically inclined agrees. So swimming is an extra-curricular activity that we've done with our kids since age 3, and we continue to do weekly. Thankfully swimming lessons in Montreal are easy to find and affordable - hiring a semi-private instructor to teach Lily and Oli cost $11/kid/class. If they're in a group of up to six kids, it's even less. There's also discounts when you sign up more than two children, so it's a great option for us. At ages 4, 6, and 7, our kids all love the water and our older two are proficient swimmers. 

This year for the first time, we've signed up our older two in an additional activity on top of swimming. Oli is doing indoor/ball hockey and Lily is taking a painting class. Both are affordable, right near our house, and on Mondays after school (which is Brad's day off, so he can take them). It's really a dream scenario and the kids are super excited about both activities! One thing I love about city living is that all of our kid's activities are within walking distance, and there are so many options for our kids.

I'd love all of our kids to take piano lessons, but right now it's not something that seems possible - classes seem too expensive and we don't own a keyboard or piano (and don't really have space for either).

So we're set on two activities for our 7 and 6 year-olds, and one activity for our 4 year-old. I don't think I'd want to do more than two at one time, for many reasons - guarding the kid's down time and our family time on evenings and weekends, saving money, and keeping the siblings together as much as possible since they're apart all day at school. I'd love to hear what works for your families!

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