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Adding Field Trips to Your Homeschool

Benefits

Adding Field Trips to Your HomeschoolField trips are a great addition to your homeschool for a number of reasons, including the following:

• Improved learning. Field trips are a great way to make the lessons you are teaching to your students more real; this helps them see the practical applications of their education.

• Broadened horizons. You can use field trips to expose your children to all sorts of experiences.

• Opportunities for socialization. Many of your field trips will be done in conjunction with other homeschoolers. This provides a great chance for your kids to interact with other homeschooled kids.

• Interrupted routine. Field trips are a great way to add variety to your homeschool and are a great way to break up the routine of school.

• Lots of fun. Field trips are fun for both students and their teachers (in this case, you!).

When it comes to field trips, homeschooling provides much more flexibility than field trips taken by traditional schools. Because you will likely have a much smaller group, you will be much less of a burden to the places you visit than would traditional schools. For the same reason, homeschool groups often have access to areas that are off limits to traditionally schooled kids. Because your schedule isn't driven by the clock as much as those of traditional schools, your field trips can have greater depth to them.

Where to goIdentifying Potential Field Trips
The field trips that you take are limited only by your imagination. Although it is impossible to list all the possible field trips there are, here are a few examples to get you thinking about the possibilities:

• Historical sites

• Zoos and aquariums

• Parks and nature sites

• Businesses and factories

• Theaters and symphonies

• Museums

• Government facilities

• Airports, bus stations, train stations, and other transportation sites

• Media outlets, such as television and radio stations, newspapers, and so on

To get the most benefit from them, field trips should tie to your lesson plans in some way. There are two basic ways to relate a field trip to your lesson plans.

One way is to review upcoming lesson plans and choose a field trip that ties directly to those plans. One of the easiest examples of this is history. As you review your history lesson plans, you can identify historical sites that directly tie to specific lessons. Or, you might be studying social studies and decide to take a field trip to the office of someone who is running for a political office.

The other way is to adapt lesson plans to a field trip that you want to take. For example, you might not plan to cover some historical event in upcoming lesson plans, but a good opportunity to visit an interesting historical site related to that event pops up. In such a case, you might create a "mini" lesson plan about the historical event that takes advantage of the field trip.

Although it is best if a field trip ties directly to your current lesson plans, don't let this become a hard and fast rule. Some field trip opportunities will pop up without you being able to link them directly to your current lesson plans. Sometimes, this kind of field trip turns out to be the best kind.

When it comes to participating in a field trip that you have identified, there are two basic options. You can participate in a field trip that someone else has planned or you can plan a field trip yourself.

Tagging alongParticipating in Field Trips Other People Plan
One of the great things about having a homeschool network is the field trips that will become available to you. Whether you participate in formal or informal networks, field trip opportunities and invitations will regularly come to your attention.

The best thing about field trips that someone else plans is that you usually don't have to do much of the planning work required. Although someone does the planning work, that doesn't mean that you should plan on not being responsible for anything. Any field trip takes a lot of work; you should help with this work even if you aren't in charge of the field trip.

When you receive a field trip invitation, evaluate the opportunity with the following points in mind:

• Does the field trip fit into my lesson plans? If so, figure out how you can best use the field trip to benefit the lesson.

• If it doesn't fit into my lesson plans, can I create a lesson to take advantage of it? Some field trips are worth taking even if you have to create some lesson plans to incorporate them into your homeschool.

• If the field trip doesn't really fit into my school plans, should I take it anyway? Some trips are just a lot of fun or they provide opportunities for learning without necessarily directly relating to the topics you are teaching.

• Do I have the time and money (if applicable) to participate?

• Are the people planning the field trip responsible and do we get along? Some people are good at planning and conducting field trips and some aren't. A poorly planned and executed field trip might not be worth the time or money it can require.

If you are invited to participate in a field trip, make sure that you inform the person who is planning the field trip about your decision whether you participate or not. Planning a field trip is often heavily dependent on the number of people participating so keeping the planner informed is very important.

If you accept an invitation, inform the planner about the number and ages of the students who will be attending. If you want to participate as well, make sure that you let the planner know. (You will often attend homeschool field trips along with your kids.)

Next, make sure you obtain and read any information that is provided for the field trip. This information usually includes details such as the date, time, location, transportation arrangements, cost, and so on. Pay particular attention to any response dates, such as when any money is due.

If you will be available, offer your assistance to the trip's leader. There are usually lots of tasks associated with a field trip. Being a responsible homeschooler means that you are willing and able to pitch in.

After that, follow any instructions that are provided to you. For example, make sure you show up on time, have met any financial obligations, such as purchasing tickets (most of the time, the planner will do this for you).

During the field trip, support the trip leader in any way you can. Help that person keep any eye on kids, communicate with personnel associated with the field trip location, and so on. Field trips are usually group functions; be as helpful as you can be to the group.

After the field trip is complete, make sure you understand any follow-up obligations. At the least, a thank you note to the trip's planner is called for. Later in this chapter, you'll learn about some of the ways you can integrate the field trip into your homeschool.