If one of the benefits of homeschooling is vacationing during the off-season, then another benefit is definitely counting some vacation time as school time. We have had some awesome vacations that could easily be counted as extended field trips.
One year, for example, we went to Hilton Head. The resort at which we were staying offered trips into the marshlands with an ecologist, a morning excursion to a local wildlife sanctuary, and several different classes for kids about the wildlife in the area. We made sure to take advantage of as many of those as we could.
On that same vacation, we also made a side trip to Savannah, Georgia on the way home. We opted to take a tour bus ride through the city in order to hit as many highlights as we could in the limited time that we had available.
On another vacation, we were near enough to the east coast of Florida to justify an overnight stay in St. Augustine. That was one of the coolest field trips ever, as we took advantage of a “living museum.” We were able to step back in time and watch the artisans at work in much the same way that they would have been in the days of colonial Spain. We were also able to visit and tour the Castillo de San Marcos, which the kids found much more fascinating than I recall finding it when I was their age. We were also able to visit nearby Kennedy Space Center, something that we all enjoyed.
Have you found the opportunity to turn a portion of your family vacations into an extended field trip? We’d love to hear about your family’s adventures.
Kris is the sweet tea drinking, classically eclectic, slightly Charlotte Mason, homeschooling mom to three Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.
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We usually do an 18th century historical re-enactment every year (though we missed it this year), which I’m looking forward to doing as a homeschooling family. It’s like a weekend long living history lesson!
When we went to Disney World we counted our day at Epcot as a field trip day towards our count, as it is so educational, half the time Genius didn’t even know she was learning!
@ Tammy – Oh, I would totally count Epcot! That is such a cool place to visit…and definitely educational.
@ Katie – I love those historical re-enactments!
Ah, I was going to say Epcot,but Tammy beat me to it.
We really need to do the re-enactment that Katie mentioned. We haven't gone to it since we were first married, and we've never taken the kids. (Katie & I live in the same area.)
We went to St. Louis in the Spring (before we were homeschooling), but we are thinking of going again next year. That would have been just one giant field trip — we did SO many educational things!