Sharing the Dictionary Project with home-schooled students

Many Dictionary Project sponsors work hard to make sure that no child in their community is left out of the project. To that end, they visit each public and private school, giving dictionaries to all of the children, and leaving extra ones with the teachers for new students who may join the class. They also want to make sure that home-schooled children have the opportunity to receive their own personal dictionaries, but getting the word out to these children and their families is not always easy. How does your club or organization reach these children? If you have some ideas to pass along to sponsors who wish to include more home-schooled children in their projects, please click here to send us your suggestions. We will share them on the website.

Here is a response from an experienced Dictionary Project sponsor:

We find generally that homeschooling parents stay connected to the public schools–it’s not unusual for homeschooled kids to attend our dictionary day presentation.

Since these presentations are often covered by local media, I make a specific request that reporters mention how homeschoolers can get a dictionary.

We also look for opportunities to connect through other organizations. For example, it is not unusual for homeschoolers to be involved in 4-H, so we’ll try to get the information to those leaders. While we haven’t felt the need to go this far, I think a sign or flyer in the local public library might be another idea.

Walter Boomsma, Valley Grange # 144, Abbot, ME