Homeschool Field Trips Free Field Trip Planning Page

We have t-shirts that we used for our homeschool field trips that read “Home – An Important Piece of the Educational Puzzle” because part of learning at home is not learning at home. 

I know that sounds weird, but if you have taken any field trips at all, which I know you have, you know what I mean by it.

One year, we even had a cake made about our theme as we celebrated our time away from home.

Though I love to talk anytime about how our lack of socialization is a bunch of baloney, I am really focusing today on sharing how to plan a homeschool field trip and survive to enjoy it too.

Some of my tips may save you sanity whether you are planning for a larger or smaller group.

Homeschool Field Trip Hurdles

There are some things you want to think about when planning field trips that will make them successful and help you to avoid making some rookie mistakes.

When we first started, our group was small and we had young children pretty close to the same age.  It was easy to plan field trips because any place basically enamored our younger kids.

Our problem came later as the group got bigger and we had a larger mix of ages.

Here are a few tips to think about when planning

• Be sure you know the age range of your children before planning each trip.

If you do not separate your group by ages like we did, then you will want to balance how many field trips you have for younger kids and for older kids.  It simply is not fair to the group as a whole to do preschool things each month or to do something that only highschoolers can do.  It requires a bit of finesse and a little more work on the part of the planner to stay balanced.

More Homeschool Field Trip Resources

• Free Editable Field Trip Tracking Guide for Homeschool Field Trips
• 7 Benefits of Virtual Field Trips that May Change Your Perspective
• Homeschool Field Trip Journal Pages
• 22 Awesome Homeschool History Field Trips

The moms in our groups chose to not separate our group because we had kids in both older and younger groups.

We wanted our kids to stay together so I balanced the places we go to each year, which included some for older and some for younger.

• Determine the total number of people, not just students.

Another obstacle to look out for is asking your group for only the total number of children.  A lot of places assume you are bringing just students and you generally are not.

On our field trips, not only did we have moms, but sometimes dads came too and maybe even grandparents attended. 

The field trip place needs to be aware of the total number of bodies they are going to crowd into a room. 

Communication is vital and it is up to you to educate facilities on how we do field trips, which means that a whole family can come.

• Set up a easy way for groups to communicate the number going and how to pay, otherwise you are receiving text and emails that you don’t have time to answer.

Sure, if your group is about 10, it’s not problem, but a small group didn’t last long for us and we needed real life workable solutions.

We normally set up a RSVP poll on our field trip group and we also have a date deadline for those to sign up. 

It is important in managing a group that you have deadlines because otherwise persons are always late and it puts more stress and hard work on the ones who are stepping up to lead.

Few Rules on Field Trips

Leaders do not generally get paid when planning homeschool field trips and so I find that by respecting deadlines, it keeps the work load light for those sweet volunteers.

• Balance paid versus free field trips.

Another point of controversy in a group can be that only paid field trips are planned.  If a family has one or two kids, it may not be a problem.  If you have more kids, then it can get costly.  Lovingly, we tried to balance the field trips each month by making one a paid field trip one month and the next month, host a free one.

Because I was asking the same questions over and over again each month, I prepared a Field Trip Planning page so that I could use it as I planned each field trip.

Using it as checklist will help you to avoid making some of the same mistakes we did, like too large of a group, having some members who paid for the event and others who did not and deciding ahead of time whether to eat lunch out or go to the park.

How do you go about finding places in your area and connecting with other homeschooler?  I will share some of my tips in the second part of planning homeschool field trips.

Have you already hit some of these hurdles when planning field trips?

Want to read more about how we are educated and yes, socialized?

• Socialization – A Homeschool Hallucination?
• 5 Ideas to Kick-Start Your New Homeschool Year By Including Others

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