Out-of-School Time Club Ideas for Fun and Engaging Programs

When coming up with OST club ideas, you need to think of wider implications than mere distractions for restless young people. A successful club is one that ticks many boxes and creates deeper and more lasting habits in its members that will be carried into their futures.

We’ve got a list of ten OST club activities ideas coming right up, but first, let’s dig a little deeper into why clubs are important and what many get wrong.

Why OST Club Ideas are Often so Bad

Out-of-school clubs need to be more than just a social gathering for kids to blow off steam. There’s so much that can be accomplished with a well-planned program that can have wider implications and change the community as a whole.

By designing your OST clubs in a way that maximizes impact across a range of practical, financial, and social factors, you’ll be more able to run a sustainable program that’s both popular and effective.

Well-thought-out OST club activity ideas involve tying the club into a bigger picture, generating income for the school, addressing the wider issues of hunger or nutrition in students, or working on life skills like community building, punctuality, or social development. The more ways you can tie it into the greater good, the better your chances of success.

Many OST club ideas are simply around finding an outlet for young people, and while this is a critical part of raising healthy adults, where these ideas often fail is in their short-sightedness. Many organizers, and thus sponsors, fail to see the bigger picture, and as such, when funding gets tight, the programs are cut.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the most promising OST club ideas you might be able to work from.

Ten OST Club Activities Ideas

Take a look at these ideas and use them as inspiration for your own, taking into account what’s available to you and what your students could benefit from the most.

1. Cooking Club

This one’s a great way to teach the basics of nutrition and diet while at the same time contributing to the betterment of both. There are countless cases of under-nourished or even under-fed kids at school, and a cooking club can be a way for them to not only learn to make healthy and delicious food but to gain access to it in cases where they otherwise wouldn’t.

It’s been shown that good nutrition helps students perform better at school and build lasting skillsfor a healthier future.

2. Fitness Club

Similarly, getting young people to learn about and take part in healthy activities pays dividends, and an OST club centered around physical fitness can build a foundation that protects from all kinds of mortality factors.

Sport and fitness are also great media for building teamwork and collaboration and can aid those looking to take part in the disciplines professionally, and can be a useful way to identify and facilitate those with exceptional talents.

3. History Club

Many believe that only with a critical assessment of the past can people learn from it and make the future a better place. History club, therefore, offers an engaging way of informing young people of the wider contexts of the present day.

History clubs can be extremely diverse in their content with plenty of topics to offer that are both exciting and relevant, and when executed well, can have implications for future politicians, policy-makers, and leaders.

4. Book Club

Reading and reading comprehension is in decline among students, especially since the pandemic. There is a battle for attention going on between educators and digital media, and books seem to be suffering from collateral damage.

Book clubs not only help promote reading and comprehension skills, but also stimulate students to learn more experiences and opinions, and provide a safe and healthy environment to analyze and critique these.

5. Photography Club

The photography club may seem like a simple hobby group, but it can provide valuable life skills too. Aside from the obvious benefit of learning a marketable skill, studying photography requires taking a step back from your surroundings and breaking down an aesthetic in a critical manner.

Photography can help students categorize their experiences in the world and form a nuanced and complex image of their environment, and the skills involved activate new pathways in terms of appreciation and abstraction in looking at the world.

6. First Aid Club

First aid is another skill that’s sorely lacking in the common populations, and one there’s little excuse for overlooking. First aid clubs can provide life-saving education to countless students in a cheap and entertaining way.

Teaming up with the local fire department can also offer career pathways to certain members and help build a useful network and background experience for students looking for a public service career. This club directly impacts the community as a whole and can help educational institutions form useful relationships with other community organizations.

7. STEM Club

STEM club allows collaborative efforts between teachers, students, and parents to provide options for students who want to explore STEM careers or those who are simply interested in exploring the world through the lens of science. This is a great club for the more dazzling demonstrations that can’t be pulled off in high school chemistry and boosts critical thinking, reasoning, and practical skills.

Breaking down different elements of the student experience into the descriptive formats used in STEM can teach students how to analyze real-world problems and create innovative solutions. This is all part of building a healthy resilience to issues they’ll face growing up.

8. Improv Club

There is very little that’s as stimulating to quick thinking as improvisation. This skill will promote teamwork and creativity that transcend its use in Improv club and offers a unique approach to learning to listen, pay attention, and adapt to situations.

Most importantly, improv class teaches students to fail without fear, something that few people are capable of and everybody could benefit from. For providing skills such as public speaking, social confidence, and other elements of being around people, improv class can’t be bettered.

9. Pottery Club

As a hands-on, tactile experience, pottery club is good for stimulating those who like to both create and get their clothes messy. But it’s more than that; making pottery can become an exercise in quieting the mind, and can be a constructive way to unwind difficult mental energy for many.

A good pottery club offers a welcoming community that stimulates creativity and potentially results in a marketable product for some of your attendees.

10. Animal Lovers Club

The pressing concerns about the effects of human behavior and climate change on our ecosystems and the animals within them can be tactfully and casually addressed by bringing students into contact with animals. Whether they’re farm animals or more exotic wildlife species, being able to hold, learn about, and meet animals in person stores a lasting image in the minds of young people and gives them a deeper understanding of the connection between what we do and the natural world.

Animal clubs are also a way to teach students how to care and have therapeutic, health, and social benefits for people of all ages.

Conclusion

Whatever kind of club you choose, Curacubby offers a complete platform to register, invoice, and track attendees, as well as handle payments and reports; helping you bring your project online quickly and painlessly, whatever it is.

Meet with an Out-of-School Time Specialist today to explore how Curacubby can help your organization plan and grow.