Friday, February 1, 2013

Field Trips Re-Visited


This past summer I wrote a series called Early Grammar Stage Focus.  In it, I took a close look at the article 10 Things To Do With Your Child Before Age 10  from Trivium Pursuit and challenged myself to do better in the areas that they highlight.  It is been a few months, and school is in full swing, so I want to check back in and see how I have done in each of the areas.  Every few weeks I will re-visit one of the 10 topics, so come back for more!

 You can get this "10 things..." article plus SO much more information in the book Teaching the Trivium from the good people at Trivium Pursuit.

This week we are going to talk about field trips again.  Fun!  If you missed it last time, or just need a refresher, take a minute and read my first post on the subject.

Last time we talked about how children are designed to move.  They need to explore and discover, not sit still.  (Don't get me wrong, I strongly believe that children should be able to sit still for a period of time, but that is another subject =)  The article linked to above suggests taking your kids to concerts, museums, fairs, plays, etc. and making frequent trips to the library.  Last time I made a few goals for my family, let's take a look...

Goals

  1. Go on at least one field trip a month
  2. Find other opportunities than the standard outings we are used to.
    1. concert
    2. play
    3. museum
    4. other?
  3. Go to the library at least once a month and actually read books!

Looking back at these, I can tell you that we had mixed results.  Let's start with the good!  I am happy to report that we have been taking frequent trips to the library.  We recently moved to a new city, so we got a new library to explore!  We find books related to what we are studying and also books to read just for fun.  My son has really started enjoying books more, both reading on his own and listening to me read to him.

As for the other two goals, I'm sad to report that I have not met them.  A big part of that is, like I mentioned above, we moved to a new home this summer and along with that comes lots of 'new house' fun.  We went from a condo with no land whatsoever to a home on an acre, so most of our summer and fall was spent exploring our new land!  So while technically we did not go out on many field trips, we definitely did a lot of exploring and discovering! 

We did go out to a petting zoo, a pumpkin patch, and I'm sure something else, but hopefully this winter I will be able to be more purposeful about finding other kinds of cultural opportunities to share with my kids.  I would love to find a concert or children's play to go to this winter.  So I guess that is my new goal =)

What kinds of field trips have you taken with your kids this year?  Any favorites or recommendation? 


This post is a part of the following series:



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2 comments:

  1. For our family our "field trips" usually center around nature or the arts. We have visited the local observatory several times, rock climbing, a nature center, an outdoor concert, local theater, and just our local walking trail...lots and lots of times. We sometimes meet up with one or two other families or we go on our own.

    When the boys were younger I would brainstorm one big field trip each month and looked at what we could do within a 50-60 mile radius (actually drew a circle on the map). Many times we did field trips on the weekend so we could include other family members too.

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    1. I like your idea about looking for all the things within about an hour of your house. My husband typically takes single days off for vacation time instead of taking a week-long vacation or two each year, so that would be a great way to spend some of those day "vacations." I'm going to have to look and see what is a little father from us!

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