Using Field Trips as Part of Homeschooling
Adding Field Trips to Your Homeschool
When children attend public school, field trips are a mainstay of the school year. It’s good to get the kids out of the classroom on occasion and let them go somewhere where they can have fun while learning. This is one of the things that many homeschooling parents worry that their children will miss out on. That doesn’t have to be an issue at all. In fact, home-schooled children can go on even MORE field trips than those in public schools.
Choosing and organizing these field trips will be left up to the parent that’s responsible for homeschooling. If your children are old enough to contribute to the choices, by all means, let them. They’ll take in so much more of what the trip has to teach them if they’re excited about the destination.
How to select the best field trip for your children
When selecting the best places for your children to attend field trips, you’ll need to consider several factors. Their ages, subjects they study and their interests should all be taken into account. If you have any special needs children or children with challenging behaviors, you must also take that under advisement. The last thing you want is a disaster of any kind on your field trip, whether it’s someone getting hurt or something valuable destroyed that you’ll be responsible for replacing or repairing.
Younger children like things that they can touch and play with. Many cities have special museums just for kids to attend where they can touch and learn from the items on exhibit. These include science museums, space museums, and history museums. You can also take them to special matinees of children’s movies or plays. If you match the ages and behaviors of the event, it will be enjoyed by everyone.
Older children can be a bit more challenging to entertain sometimes. If you live near a wax museum, zoo, or aquarium, those are often the perfect choices. It’s the older children that you can whisk away on overnight trips to nearby historical locations. Don’t forget to let them help choose and even plan these field trips. You can be sure to have a real success on your hands if they’ve been a part of the planning.
Another way you can work in relevant field trips is through special assemblies at local public schools. Many times, there are public schools that work in conjunction with home-schooled children in their locations. This means that home-schooled children are invited to any special event that they may want to attend those schools.
A lot of schools are able to book celebrities and other popular speakers and entertainers to appear. Your children can be a part of these audiences. Just be sure to check into this with your local school board.
Field trips are actually very important and successful teaching tools. This is true even if you’re taking the kids somewhere that it feels like they’re playing. In fact, fun learning is usually the most effective learning. Keep that in mind.