When I think about going on field trips, I often think about day-long, very planned out excursions. But, field trips don’t have to be that way. A field trip can be as simple as a trip to the gas station, as long as you take the time to make sure that your students are learning from the experience.

Here are some ideas of simple field trips that might not automatically come to mind when thinking of field trips (some can involve either minimal planning or can become a huge project — it all depends on what you are looking to add to your school day, as well as the days leading up to and following your field trip):

• Gas Station

• Amtrak (ride on it to a nearby city, across the country, or just visit the station)

• The downtown area of your town or a local town

• Local Newspaper Publisher

• Your place of worship (or another one — maybe from your denomination or something totally different. If you are going to one different than your own, you might want to take someone of that denomination with you to answer questions, or you’ll need to research your trip)

• Dad / Grandma / Mom / Uncle Joe’s Place of Employment

• Voting Polls

• Grocery Store

• Local Festivals

• A ride on local public transportation

• Trip to your alma mater (especially if it’s not a far trip!)

• The library

• Laundromat

• Camera Shop

• Local Bakery or Restaurant

• Floral Market

What are some of your favorite simple field trips?

Angie can be found writing at both Many Little Blessings and The Homeschool Classroom when she can manage to not be driving around in the mini van.

photo by Terry Freedman

by Dr Craig

A Child Age 2 - 3 Can:

• Help make the bed
• Pick up toys and books
• Take laundry to laundry room
• Help feed pets
• Help wipe up messes
• Dust with an old sock on their hands

Notes about this age:

• Excited to help
• Needs complete supervision
• Needs help laying the groundwork

A Child Age 4 - 5 Can:

• Clear and set the table
• Dust
• Help prepare food (example: add ingredients, stir)
• Carry in groceries and put some away

Notes about this age:

• No constant supervision needed
• Feels independent

Children Ages 6 - 8 Can:

• Be responsible for a pet
• Vacuum and mop
• Take out trash and replace bag
• Fold and put away laundry

Notes about this age:

• Feels very independent
• Not as excited to help you

Children Ages 9 - 12 Can:

• Help wash the car
• Wash dishes
• Help prepare simple meals
• Clean the bathroom
• Rake leaves and shovel snow
• Operate the washer or dryer

Notes about this age:

• Crave continuity
• Need well defined consequences
• Need to feel they have input

Children Ages 13 - 17 Can:

• Replace light bulbs and vacuum bags
• Laundry
• Wash windows
• Clean out refrigerator and other appliances
• Prepare meals
• Prepare grocery list
• Driving teens can do the grocery shopping

Notes about this age:

• Need consideration for their time
• Manage their expectations
• Appreciate affirmation
• Need to hear they’re capable

Remember that every child is unique. Some children just may not be at a certain point by a certain age. These are just generalizations.

(This information is from an unsourced handout received at a church function.)

Angie can be found writing at Many Little Blessings, where she is glad that you can’t really see her house to see that our chores are not yet done.

How to play The Gross Sentence Game:

1. Make a whole bunch of 3 x 5 cards with various words on them. You need nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc… They all must be present. Make sure to include some “unusual” and extra “gross” words. Scabs and toe nails and pustules and the like.
2. Then have the children go through your big pile of random words and construct, hopefully hilarious, sentences. Sentences like, “I ate rhinoceros toe nails and scabs. Yum!”

This of course can get very gross but if your children are like mine they will end up crying in laughter on the floor and begging to build more sentences. For my boys, they really get going with this game when we use words that normally would cause me to cringe. Like it or not, these nasty words combined with words like Rhinoceros, ate and the make for some pretty interesting sentences.

Tweak the game for your own child. Perhaps you have a girl who is obsessed with princesses… make it all about fairyland and Disneyland and Lala Land and any other land of make believe that you can conjure up.

Nan is the sassy wife of a hot reformed pastor. She’s an American expat living in Canada. Her four sons make life like a veritable lunchbox. She blogs regularly at Life is Like a Lunchbox

Hi, my name is Nan and I have a hyperactive child.

Here he is.

Oh wait a minute… that’s a kind of dated picture.

Here he is…

I love this child dearly. But this child is not fond of sitting at a desk. He’s not fond of having to look at books because it requires that he sit down to do so. Having said all of that, I can tell you this; he is not lacking in intelligence. He is one smart kid.

He just doesn’t like sitting down. Unless it’s for a movie, of course. Then he seems to have quite a long attention span, strangely enough.

As you might imagine, school can be a challenge for someone who despises having his bum glued to a chair. So you see, one must begin to become comfortable with doing things a little differently.

In an effort to bring his lessons up to speed with his energy level I have instituted a new methodology. We don’t do this every day. Some days we just do the whole glue-the-bum-to-the-chair-and-push-through-the-hard-lessons-whether-we-like-them-or-not-thing.

My new methodology is called Jumping School. Jumping Math. Jumping Phonics. Jumping fill in the blank.

Here is how Jumping Phonics works:

1. First get a pad of sticky notes and on them write all the letters of the alphabet as well as any phonetic digraphs (like Ch/sh/th/ou, etc.) you are currently working on with your child.
2. Then hand the stack of stickies to your child and ask them to take them to the kitchen and stick them all over the floor.

We have tile style linoleum so I asked the boys to please put one sticky note per square. We made a big long path through the kitchen.

It looked like the dotted line on a treasure map when we were done laying them all out. Just think of this as a modified form of hopscotch or something.

Then we played games. My younger one joined in too but I made my bigger boy work a little harder. Whenever we do this I come up with different rules that he has to follow. Initially I made him hop on each square that had a note. When he hopped on it he had to say the sound each letter makes (note: not the name of the letter).

After we did that, I changed the rules. I told him to run through the room trying not to step on any sticky notes.

If he stepped on one, I would yell FREEZE and he would have to go back to it and say the sound. We did this with hopping on one foot too. He had to try to dodge the stickies and if he landed on them, he had to say their sounds. Just to drag it out as long as possible, we did another full run through but this time he just had to walk slowly instead of hopping or dodging.

This is just one of the ways that I have learned to step out of the ordinary and really get creative for my boy who so dislikes his desk and the concept of silent contemplation. (Though let’s be real… he doesn’t merely dislike it, he has jumping beans filling his entire body cavity and is really almost physically unable to sit still or keep his eyes from being anywhere that they need to be. I say “almost” because he can… it’s just extremely difficult.)

Nan is the sassy wife of a hot reformed pastor. She’s an American expat living in Canada. Her four sons make life like a veritable lunchbox. She blogs regularly at Life is Like a Lunchbox

When I say “writing,” do you immediately think of book reports or journal writing? My kids do, but they don’t enjoy these types of writing. I’ve found some “sneaky” ways to get them writing that they do enjoy.

Try these “sneaky” writing tips and see if your kids think you’re taking a break from school to do them!

1. Write Jokes & riddles - As a bonus, have another child try to figure out the riddle.
2. Write a “round robin” story as a family - Roll a die to determine how many words each person writes during their turn.
3. Play Hidden Treasure - Each child gets to hide a treat for another child. Then they write up clues (the number of clues can vary, based on their age) to help their siblings find the treat.
4. Make a List - You could make a veritable list of list topics! Just a few examples might be: grocery lists, people they need to pray for, or books they have read and would recommend to someone else.

Angie can be found writing about faith, family, and household management at Many Little Blessings, while she tackles homeschooling topics at The Homeschool Classroom