Question on field trips and getting it done

[MrsMe]

Another question for you all. My dd hates school. I can't really change much anymore other than to do more fun school trips and such. The problem is we live in the boonies. So a trip is all day.

 

How do you catch up after that? I mean how do you know what to chuck for that day because you missed it by going on field trips? I don't want dd to hate school (she'll be 9 next week). She's hated it from day 1 (I mean from 3 and up). She's always wanted to what she wants. Play, play, play.

 

I'm rather anal about organization and such and need ideas how to put the fun trips into a day without having to skip the vital parts.

[NorthwestMom]

I don't know the laws in AZ, but can you move to a 4 day schedule and do field trips one day per week? Or move to a year-round schedule to accommodate the days off?

[patchfire]

The way I figure it, there are between ten and twenty days of school that the local PS kids don't do 'work' - they have field trips, 'beach day,' 'field day,' 'international art day,' and, oh yeah, don't forget at least seven days of testing.

 

So I plan for 165-170 days of work in each area. The only exception is that I plan our reading by weeks - we can always find time to read in a day. :) The rest of the days are for field trips and the like, adding up to 180 days.

 

I don't know what the requirements are for your state, but ours it is - 180 days reported, so that's the 'standard' I use.

[The Governess]

I am doing "regular" subjects with dd Monday-Thursday. Fridays are our "fun" school days. Every other Friday we do elective subjects: crafts, cooking, music, or working on a history project. The other Fridays we will either go on a field trip if I can find one related to what we are currently studying, or just take the day off. I school 40 weeks a year so I figure I can take off a Friday here and there and it won't matter. We're starting K, but I'm planning on keeping this schedule until we get to 6th grade at least.

 

If you have something exciting planned for a Friday, contingent on her finishing her schoolwork for the week before you go, would that motivate her to get her work done?

[Laura Corin]

We do one field trip a month. That keeps me on track, otherwise I don't get around to them.

 

Laura

[gingersmom]

We generally do school 4 days a week and save one day a week for field trips.

 

We have memberships to 3 different museums (so we have no excuse not to go).

 

You can use a field trip as a starting point for a unit study. We go to a museum with an amazing dinosaur collection (unit study) and another one has an amazing collection of egyptian artifacts and mummies and incredible artwork.

 

You can always give her "work" to do while at a museum or someplace else. Or write an essay when she gets home.

 

Have you checked out any unschooling groups?

[christielee7278]

Could she do some of her work to and from in the car? Those lap desks make it easier to do writing in the car if she isn't prone to car sickness. Maybe history on cds in the car?

[Mommy22alyns]

A field trip day counts as a school day even if that's all she does. If I need Becca to do a little work in the car, I give her coloring sheets, independent reading, or (if I'm not driving) spelling words/phrases. Or sometimes I just have to pop in a semi-educational video and call it a day.

[mcconnellboys]

We do school in the car on the way there and back. We also are doing school in preparation for the trip by studying about things we're going to see/do there and after we get back, in follow-up, too.

[EmilyK]

My kids are in our local public school (there are some wonderful things about it which is why they're still there, but that's not the topic of this post).

 

For whatever reason here, they don't test as much as stated above -- maybe 3 half days a year in 2nd to 4th grade. (And they don't spend much time teaching the test.) But I would say they go on 5 to 7 days of field trips a year, including many things we do as a family anyway (zoo, music etc). The last 2 weeks of the year, and often the day before a break, November 1, etc. are pretty light in content -- rewards for good behavior like movies, playing outside, listening to music, art and music classes, and then end of the year cleanup. I'm not saying those have no educational content -- my kids learn something cleaning house with me -- but many of those things could be replicated at home pretty easily. :001_smile: And this spring my kids' classes on Friday seemed pretty light -- I volunteered that day and they never seemed to need me because they were doing something fun like above, or on a trip. (Many of these things are valuable for the at-risk families who never do these things, but those are definitely the times I felt most like homeschooling.)

 

I could go on and on, but the point is that I think if you were following a school schedule my personal belief is that 20+ days could be substituted with field trips or other "fun" learning. Of course, many homeschoolers want to do more than school can accomplish. :001_smile:

[Dobela]

When I taught public school, the school had to be in session for 180 day, but the students could have excused absenses ;) Not every student attended for 180 days. But that is another topic...

 

I started keeping a calendar of days in school. To do weekly fun field trips (mostly afternoons), my son has to complete reading, math and grammar before we even consider leaving. For all day activities I don't always count it as a day of school. It just depends on the activity. However, we are schooling year round this year. That way we can take off as we want and keep up with academics.

[Chris in VA]

I like to at least cover math before we go anywhere--I usually plan about an hour of work before we go. That way, we don't get behind. I don't school for 180 days or 36 weeks, so we need to do a lot in the time we have.

[Rosie_0801]

How much of her play would count as work? How much of her work can be made into play? Playing fashion shows with barbies could lead into sewing, which is home ec and maths. Playing computer games? How about getting Civilization? Not work in the same way as learning Latin, but more educational than what she'd usually be playing, I expect. Maths games? Everyone seems to like Rightstart games.

 

Then of course, sometimes you have to study whether you like it or not, so do your work or go clean the bathroom, then the kitchen, then the lounge-room, then weed the garden...

 

Rosie

[Ellie]

We left the house every Thursday for a field trip of some kind, and Fridays we cleaned house. On Monday we just picked up where we left off. If I'd had to count days, I'd have counted the field trip as "school."

[phathui5]

Field trips definitely count as school days.

[Garga]

Field trips are a school day.

 

At most on a field trip day, I have the kids do one math sheet (like 12 problems) and maybe read to me a little (ds 6 is still learning to read.) Tops.

 

And the math sheet can be done in the car.

[Carol in Cal.]

So I feel good about a week if we have done grammar 4X, math 4-5X, history 2X, science 3X, music 1X, Bible 4X, etc. We usually overachieve past that schedule, so I don't feel badly about taking days here and there for worthwhile activities that I count as school. Also, we do school year round to a large extent, so we have time for flexibility in our schedule. That way we can take it easy at Christmas time, for instance, or if DD has a significant rehearsal schedule, or if she gets sick, without feeling overly pressured by this.

 

Worthwhile activities that I count as school include attending plays, especially if DD studies them in advance and/or writes about them afterwards, author talks or workshops at libraries, living history sites or festivities, nature site visits, and especially science or natural history museum visits.

 

I tend not to get to hands on science, (blush), so I try to schedule science field trips when I can, and spend the whole day on them. I tend to assign DD a report on whatever the primary field trip was about, and also a list of 10 NEW things that she learned that day. Since these are generally at children's science museums, she has to study, experiment, and then digest the information to be able to write the reports and the lists.

 

We usually belong to one science museum or another, and they often have membership nights. The last time one of those came up, it was a 3 or 4 hour affair that included some food and karate demos. We arrived right at the start; and first I sent DD upstairs to the biological science area, and assigned her to spend 45 minutes studying, understanding, and making notes about the displays, were which pretty much at her learning level (she is studying biology this year--cells, heredity, human biology, etc. using Science Explorer). Then I went and found her and asked her to present the information to me. This took quite a while, about another 30-40 minutes, and she had to be able to answer my questions about what the displays showed and discuss them as well. I thought that this was a very worthwhile field trip that definitely 'counted' as school. Now, it was a late afternoon/evening party, and she had already done core subject area work, which is not usually the case for our science field trips. But I mention it to show that the after hours aspects of science museum memberships go a long way toward moving some very worthwhile field trips into 'non-school' hours. The museum that we belong to currently seems to have one of those members' only nights about every 2-3 months, which is just fantastic for us.

 

A nice fringe benefit of those science field trips is the museum stores--great science and natural history books, kits, and games.

 

And as others have mentioned, Dd does do some homework on the way to and from in the car, unless we are including a social aspect by bringing a guest or two along.

[MrsMe]

Yes, I suppose doing it on day 5 is a good idea. This last year I couldn't because we had our homeschool "girls social club" for 3.5 hours in addition to our 2xweek karate and the social club/karate day took care of day 5. I'm not sure if the person is having social club again in the fall, but I would like to skip it if it happens and make a field trip day instead. I think it would make us closer, having a fun day together, whether it's the zoo or the museum. I only have one dd and school is such a chore because she hates it. This would be the opportunity to make school more fun for us as mom and daughter.

 

Thanks for the replies.

[Vida Winter]

We school year round and take several breaks throughout to travel (visiting grandparents and such). During those times we do not do school but I do try to pack as many museums/zoos/beaches/hikes/etc. into the itinerary as possible. And during the car trip I sometimes make them watch educational DVDs, poor darlings.