Field Trip Fridays are some of my fondest memories in our homeschooling journey. Our curriculum allowed us the freedom and flexibility for a 4-day school week, leaving Friday as a day for fun. Sometimes we would venture out on big field trips with our whole homeschool crew, but often they were as simple as picnic lunches at the park. When looking back (now that mine are all in high school) I have no regrets about the time spent away from books on our special Fridays.
I recently asked my teen boys what some of their favorite field trips were. My youngest remembers our trip to a dairy farm. A local dairy farmer graciously welcomed a crew of kiddos into his dairy barn and showed us the process of how that creamy goodness gets from the cow to the gallon jug. We ended that field trip with some complimentary ice cream that the farmer was thrilled to give. We didn’t write any papers on milk production or study an animal anatomy book ahead of time; we simply petted cows, listened intently to the farmer share his life work and delighted in ice cream together with friends. A day well spent.
Another memory of a favorite field trip was a tour of the county jail. Our tribe of kiddos flooded the lobby of the jail. You sure can bet they were on their very best behavior as the officer greeted our group. They showed us the offices and where criminals get booked, and they even let the kids do some of their own fingerprinting. The highlight of that trip was seeing a jail cell. If we could have read the minds of the kids with their wide eyes, they were surely thinking “I better behave, I do not want to sleep there!” Through this field trip they learned how to listen to authority and how certain places require their best behavior. We thanked our police officers for their service to our community. Life lessons without a textbook!
We toured post offices and car manufacturing plants, we star-gazed and collected bugs with our nets cast high in the weeds. We went to the strawberry patch each spring and the pumpkin patch each fall, and Christmas caroled each December. There were days when I might have thought that we needed to catch up on math, or maybe that it would be easier for us to stay home rather than pack three lunches and get everyone out the door for a field trip, but I am thankful now for the effort we put into Field Trip Fridays.
Time is a precious commodity, and we as homeschoolers often have the blessing of extra time with our kids. I promise that some of the best homeschool memories will not be completing a math lesson or finishing a sentence you have to diagram. They will be the hands-on experiences of learning through field trips. I encourage you to get some friends together and plan a field trip this week!
MEET OUR AUTHOR
Leave A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.