Because many schools have taken the arts out of their required daytime curriculum, performing and visual arts components have taken the form of extracurricular activities. The most common include band, orchestra, drama, and visual art clubs or smaller niche clubs. These activities are a strong option for a student interested in pursuing the arts or is looking to establish well-rounded skills. These creative outlets can also help relieve stress and offer a noncompetitive extracurricular option.
Plenty of extracurricular activities are geared toward improving the school and larger community. Your school may have a recycling club, mentor program for younger students or a club that specializes in volunteering at facilities like the child crisis center or soup kitchens around town. These kinds of activities are a way to teach your child or student how a strong community stems from its active members. He'll also learn some basic job skills in the process. These extracurricular activities may be especially appropriate for special needs or life skills students. Many organizations welcome any help they can get and can match a student's ability to an appropriate task, or a teacher or assistant can supervise the work.
Extracurricular sports offer a student a way to stay healthy and active, take part in an activity in a competitive context and nurture team-building skills. The availability of different sports depends largely on the school. Typical options include football, basketball, volleyball, soccer, track and cross country, softball and baseball and swimming. Like any extracurricular, some school sports can be time-intensive. It's important to keep a balance between academics and team or individual practice and competitions. Most schools have a grade-point average or academic performance requirements for student-athletes.
Activities may also focus on a certain subject or career path. Student government activities fall into the social service realm, yet also introduce a student to the concept of government and management. A school may have a business club, debate team, math or sciences clubs or model United Nations club. Other clubs focus on helping students stay healthy or improve/maintain academic achievement, such as tutoring and homework clubs and honor societies.