Explorer Kids is a place to help parents & educators create after-school educational groups. This site is an alternative to religion-based organizations such as Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Brownies, and Girl Scouts.
Much like Campfire USA, this is a group for both genders. Unlike Campfire USA, however, Explorer Kids is designed for learning about arts and sciences, not leadership skills. The basic belief is that engaged and learning children grow up to make better leaders.
Military-like expensive uniforms are replaced with simple, inexpensive t-shirts and caps which are optional. Flag ceremonies and prayer are replaced with actual activities. Financial expenditures for handbooks and leader information are replaced with on-line activity ideas. This online guide for children is designed by all. Consider it a wikipedia-like database of activity ideas and discussions on how to run a group. If everyone contributes ideas at each grade level, a complete activity list can be created in a quick and efficient fashion.
Finally, the huge bureaucratic layer overseeing and directing a children's program is replaced with a streamlined minimal web-based do-it-yourself system.
With Explorer Kids, field trips are supreme, behavior management is kind and based on the behavioral sciences, and groups are small and manageable.
Parents and educators are welcome to submit non-copyright activity ideas online. Remember, common ideas such as well established science experiments are not subject to copyright protection but words can be. So keep it inexpensive, simple, and engaging. Books published before 1920 are now in the public domain so non-copyright ideas are most certainly out there!
