We didn't have after school when I was in middle school but they had clubs you could go to instead of home room on certain days of the week. We did those plastic canvas crafts, languages, simple cooking, and acting.

Funny that you mention knitting . . . our middle school's Family & Consumer Sciences (we used to call it Home Ec) teacher started a knitting club and was very happy with the number of kids interested -- girls AND boys! They started with fairly simple scarves made with really fuzzy yarn.
How about some type of service-oriented thing? It could be a simple project like picking up litter or visiting a nursing home to play games with the residents. You may need special permission to take kids off of school property, though.

Well, I now have my oldest going in to middle school, and I've jumped right into things by offering to run the parent group sponsored after school program.... :eek:

This is our third year of the program, and we got funding for a third day of program activities, so now I'm looking for some new program ideas to build into that third day. Last year, we offered the following programs: cooking, intramurals, dance, homework club, computer/study skills, martial arts, peer mediation, ESL support, chess/checkers, arts and crafts, and soccer. (In case you're wondering, teachers or adult volunteers lead all these groups, and they run for one or two hours afterschool, with a late bus that takes the kids home afterwards.)

So far, we've come up with a knitting/crocheting group and a board games group to add. Does anyone have any other ideas for topics that might interest middle schoolers that maybe you have had success with? (Or not--just some random ideas help.) Thanks.