Fun Field Trips Without Leaving Your House

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I’m a huge fan of hands-on and real-life learning.  Any time you can allow your child to experience something you’re trying to teach him, he will remember it much more vividly than if you have him read about it, listen to it, or fill out a worksheet about it. Fun field trips are one amazing way that we can provide this type of experience for our children.

However, going on field trips can be tricky.  Here are some problems with field trips:

• All the kids have to go regardless of whether or not the information will be relevant to what they’re learning
• Can be hard to bring napping children, special needs children, etc.
• The logistics can be a nightmare – drive time can add up along with gas costs, having to bring food on the road, getting permission from the factory owner, lining up a guide, etc.
• Can be costly – especially when you have to pay for all of your kiddos
• Can sometimes mean that you must skip the rest of your school subjects that day to take the field trip
• Sometimes it just feels like too much work and you’d rather stay home
• As the holidays approach and your schedule gets busier, it’s hard to fit anything like field trips into your day.

But what if I told you that you can actually take some pretty awesome, interactive field trips without ever leaving your house?!?

Virtual Field Trips

Virtual field trips are one way that you can take a field trip from the comfort of your own home.  These trips are prerecorded videos of places such as national parks, museums, historical sites, and more.  These videos are very informative and are great to watch when the location is too far for you to travel to.  However, the downside is that you’re basically watching a prerecorded video.  You can’t ask questions and it isn’t a unique learning experience for your family.

Field Guides

Some book publishers have started printing guides that you can read rather than visiting a certain location.  They usually contain lots of pictures to try to help a child get a sense of what they would see if they were able to visit in person.  Again, the downside is that you’re reading a book about a location which is better than nothing but isn’t as vibrant of an experience as if you were able to visit in person.

Fun Field Trips From Home

I’ve recently discovered a way to take field trips from home, however, which trumps the other options by far. This method is called Field Trip Zoom.

I received a free membership and was compensated for my time to write this post – but my opinions are honest and I was not required to write a positive review.

Field Trip Zoom has over 250 live streamed trips per year in the fields of music, history, science, art, wellness and more.  The field trips are at locations such as The New York Hall of Science, Edisto Serpentarium, The Bat Zone, The Cranbrook Institute of Science, and The Pima Air and Space Museum.  These locations are spread across the United States and it would be difficult for one family to be able to visit them all within one year.  However, with Field Trip Zoom it’s very do-able.

The first field trip my sons and I took through Field Trip Zoom was called “Cool Chemistry” and was conducted at The New York Hall of Science.  Our field trip started at 3:10pm and that actually bothered me a bit.  I thought I would prefer being able to watch a prerecorded video so that we could watch it whenever we wanted to fit it into our day.  I soon changed my mind about that, however.

The presenter was funny and engaging.  He asked us lots of questions and wanted us to chime in with questions and with answers as he was conducting his experiments.  He also did some cool things with liquid nitrogen, an item I don’t keep stocked in our normal school supplies!

My boys started out the field trip without a lot of excitement.  They started out watching it merely to get it over with and to be able to check it off of their school list.  However, within just a few minutes they were shouting out answers for me to type into the chat box and we were laughing together and with the presenter as well.

After the hour was up, they both commented that they enjoyed it and would like to see more.  That’s a great compliment coming from 14 and 15-year-old boys.  And our pets can even attend with us!

We have since gone on a snake field trip to the Edisto Serpentarium and a bat field trip to The Bat Zone.

Both trips were just as exciting – although I highly recommend looking for field trips which are later in the day when there won’t be as many school classrooms attending for even more personalized attention from the presenter.  😉

How to Get Started

Field Trip Zoom has a website where you can view their upcoming field trips and pick and choose which ones you would like to attend.  Here are just a few of their upcoming trips:

• Nov 9 – Butterfly Pavillion – Eating Bugs
• Nov 15 – National Civil War Museum – The Changing Face of Naval Warfare
• Nov 18 – Cranbrook Institute of Science – Native American Treasures
• Nov 21 – The National D-Day Museum – Commanche Code Talkers
• Nov 29 – Byrnes Health Education Center – Nutrition
• Dec 14 – Pima Air and Space Museum – The Wright Brothers

Also, from now through December 31st, Field Trip Zoom is generously giving my readers a 10% discount if they use the coupon code ‘01346’.

If you’d like to find out more, visit their website or follow them on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.

How do you feel about field trips?  Do you enjoy taking them as often as possible?  Do you cringe when you think of the logistics?  Please leave a comment below!