A day away from the normal routine creates excitement and a well planned field trip is an excellent educational opportunity. Children remember so much more when the experience includes all their senses. A field trip should be relaxed and an opportunity for children to explore and come to their own conclusions.
It is your choice if you want to do it as a family with your children or if you want to include other homeschooling children and parents in the field trip.
Short day trips close to home can be fun with other homeschooling children of the same age. Sharing ideas and impressions with other children, who are not siblings, would create an opportunity for your child to experience how other children from different upbringings, cultures and belief systems view things.
Longer trips around your own country or abroad can be done as a family trip. Attempting this with other people you don’t know well and have different habits from yours can many times be more tiresome than interesting and relaxing. These trips can be planned around a vacation. Travel is one of the best forms of education.
Decide beforehand what you want the children to learn. A trip to France can include history, art, geography, language, life skills, travel skills and much more. Collect all the pamphlets and resource material available at museums and art galleries for later use. Retain all maps, restaurants slips and theatre tickets to use later for projects or journals.
Children on a field trip should never feel stressed and forced to remember everything. Rather teach them to collect information in an informal way and to observe and enjoy everything they encounter. Older children can take photos or make videos of interesting places and events. All of this can be used as resources for school tasks once they get back home.
Keeping a diary or journal in which they write down their experiences can also be an excellent form of resource material. Ensure there is enough time for them to do this every day.
No matter whereto the trip is or how long it will be, there will always be something they can learn from it.
