Five Ways to Fit More Field Trips into Your Homeschooling Year

Homeschooling brings about a large amount of challenges especially when it comes to scheduling. It can be very difficult to include everything that you want. Many parents often find that they are unable to cover the major subjects and still find time for the field trips. After homeschooling for several years and meeting other parents who homeschool, I have come up with five ways that may help. If you are struggling with fitting in those fun field trips that you dream of, maybe the suggestions below will help you.

Plan your week in advance

I have found that simply taking the time to plan your week in advance can help you to fit in the field trips. Of course you will not be taking big field trips every week, but even a small park outing can be considered a field trip. Planning out each of your weeks will help to make sure that you cover all of the major subjects. This will leave plenty of time for a trip at least once a month. Try setting up a schedule and checking off each subject as you finish it.

Plan one trip a month

You can also start by planning one field trip a month. If you are going to do this you will want to make sure that you cover all of the school work on the other days. Remember that your field trip will only take away one day from your school schedule. This may mean adding one or two extra assignments a week for the month. Remember that field trips do not have to be expensive, in fact many parks and libraries offer free programs through out the year.

Avoid over scheduling

Sometimes when you are homeschooling, you may feel like you are not covering enough information. If you have already chosen your curriculum for the year, and calculated how much you have to cover per day, you have nothing to worry about. Avoid trying to cram too much work into one week if you have a field trip planned for the following week. Instead you will want to try and figure out how you can fit your field trip in with your current curriculum. This way they will not be missing anything but just getting some hands on education.

Avoid distractions

If your school day is constantly interrupted, this can easily cause you to fall being in your lessons. When this happens you will find yourself trying to cram in extra work right before a field trip. You may need to take drastic measures if family, and friends are not listening when you ask them not to disturb your school day. Put everything else that you have to get done during the day to the side until all of the school work is done.

Plan ahead

Before the start of your new school year you will want to take the time to plan out your field trips. Planning things out this way will help you to already know ahead of time, when your trips are coming up. If you wait until the last minute you may find it a bit more difficult and could end up missing your field trips.