Meeting Minutes: April 18, 2009

San Diego Muslim Homeschool Association
Meeting Minutes

Date: Saturday, April 18th
Time: At 10am
Sisters present: Serena, Umm Saliha, Farhat, Rebecca, Amelia


1. Introductions
We went around the circle and introduced ourselves, as well as the approach we were taking towards homeschooling our children.
In the group, there are sisters following Well-Trained Mind, Kinza, self-developed Islamic curriculum, and unstructured

2. Set goals for this group
Goals and needs that were expressed (grouped in general categories)
1. Learning and Support for Parents
a. Forum to learn about homeschooling (different approaches)
b. Share ideas for projects, books, ways to teach, etc.
c. Document activities for future use by group members and other homeschoolers
d. Organize mini-workshops to teach ourselves about different approaches and techniques for homeschooling
2. Educational and Social Opportunities for the kids
a. Use expertise within the parent group to educate children in special areas
b. Work together to plan educational play-date/sessions for children at least once a week
c. Organize educational field trips (starting monthly) for the group
d. Provide social learning opportunities for our children by planning other shared activities (such as park days, play dates, etc)
3. Outreach to local Muslim families
a. Be a resources for other Muslim families who are considering homeschooling

3. Group Accommodation.
After talking about our general needs and goals as a group, it became clear that we are all dedicated parents with very similar goals but different specific needs. For example:
-age differences in the children. It seems that most of the sisters have children in the same age range (3-6), but sister Rebecca needs to work her schedule and activities to accommodate her older son who is outside of this age group
-gender. Although the children are young, there will have to be accommodation for some minimal amount of gender separation in group activities. All moms seem to be comfortable having mixed activities, but in order to accommodate everyone, the girls and boys should be encouraged to sit groups (different sides of the table for example).
-structure. We had a great discussion about our educational goals, and how much structure should be planned for group activities and field trips. We agreed that too much structure may not fit all children in the group, and suggested that parents who want to add structure to activities can make individualized plans for their children (for example, on a zoo field trip, rather than deciding that all children would have to fill out a worksheet or focus on a certain animal group, mothers who wanted extra structure could plan accordingly for their child… that way, our activities can accommodate everyone and also work into our individual lesson plans)
4. Scheduling
A. WEEKLY EDUCATIONAL SESSIONS
We decided that we would like this group to organize bi-weekly educational sessions for the children, and monthly or bi-monthly field trips.
However, with our busy schedules, we decided to ease into things over the summer by starting with one weekly session.
The sessions will start in June and be held at Amelia’s house. They will happen every Thursday around 2pm. In the future, Rebecca’s house is available for a second session.
We discussed structuring the sessions around a monthly theme and organizing math, science and misc. activities around that theme. Of course, Islam, Qur’an and Hadith would be added in to all aspects.
We agreed that we need to have monthly meetings to plan our play dates and continue to work on scheduling and expanding to meet the above mentioned goals.

B. MEETINGS
THE NEXT MEETING IS SET FOR MAY 16th at 10am. This will be a meeting specifically for planning to activities for the month of June.
Sister Rebecca will be responsible for initiating an online discussion to start circulating ideas about the weekly session so that we will be prepared for the meeting
C. PARK PLAY DATE. In addition, we discussed the park play date.
We decided to keep the location, although to keep in mind that in the future it might be appropriate to rotate location or establish a second day and location, depending on membership.
We also decided to keep the date (Monday), but mentioned that in the future it might make more sense to do it in the middle of the week since Monday is so close to the weekend.
We also decided to expand the hours to 1pm to 4pm, and mention in the web postings that people are welcome to come any time… so that people who can’t come until after 2pm will still join in, insha’Allah.

6. Resource Loan and Exchange Program
Tabled… didn’t have time to discuss it in detail. Rebecca mentioned that she would like to invite us to her house to see the resources she has acquired.

7. San Diego Homeschool Moms Blog

Serena already set up a great blog site. We didn’t have time to discuss how we can utilize it in detail.
Serena is responsible for initiating a web discussion about how to utilize the blog insha’Allah.

NEXT MEETING SCHEDULED FOR: MAY 16th at 10:00 am - Sister Amelia's home, insha'Allah