We were afterschoolers before I knew it had a name. I bough workbooks and did "school" with my children in he summertime to assure their math and reading did not regress. W took family field trips to zoos and museums. W stocked our home with educational games, tiys, and supplies. We read aloud. We helped with homework and science projects. We funded music lessons and team sports participation.

Donna, now a full-time home educator, afterschooled also.
She explains, "I guess that without knowing it, I did afterschool. Our family has always been into learning and education. In retrospect, we homeschooled while our son was still in school. Of course, afterschooling made switching to homeschooling a breeze, relative to what it could have been. One thing about afterschooling was hard, though. Everyone around us thought we were so weird."

Denise writes, I think we always supplemented with afterschooling when our oldest three were in public school. I thought everyone who cared about their children did the same. We went over homework and played learning games. We always took the same field trip the school did to reinforce what they missed because of the distractions that twenty-five classmates present. We went to the library weekly and read all the time to our children.

Benefits?
I gained plenty of confidence that I could homeschool and do a better job. I know now that learning takes place everyone, not just in a classroom.

Drawbacks?
My children were gone for the best hours of the day. Afterschooling did lead us to homeschool full time when I realized that they didn’t need school to learn. Amazingly, full time homeschooling was easier than handling the problems school creates and better for them too.

Just as Denise points out,
most concerned parents are afterschoolers.
They offer formal instruction outside of school, either with homework support or purchased curricular materials. They constantly look for ways to remediate problems and enrich education. They maintain rich learning environments at home. Often they become temporary full-time educators during summer break.

Afterschooling offers wonderful opportunities
for families who cannot consider homeschooling, even on a part-time basis. In addition, afterschooling lets parents practice homeschooling, sometimes leading to full-time home education.

see the interview with Cafi (Teen Homeschooling)