Field Trips
Who says homeschooling has to happen at home? Most homeschoolers will tell you that they spend almost as much time out of the house as in it. Field trips are learning opportunties that offer fun ways to make every life experience a learning experience. You'll also find tips and strategies for planning, managing, and attending field trips with your homeschool support group.
Resources
Field Trips: Bug Hunting, Animal Tracking, Bird-watching, Shore Walking

With Jim Arnosky as your guide, an ordinary hike becomes an eye-opening experience. He'll help you spot a hawk soaring far overhead and note the details of a dragonfly up close. Study the black-and-white drawings -- based on his own field research -- and you'll discover if those tracks in the brush were made by a deer or a fox.

In his celebrated style, this author, artist, and naturalist enthusiastically shares a wealth of tips. Jim Arnosky wants you to enjoy watching wildlife. He carefully explains how field marks, shapes, and location give clues for identifying certain plants and animals wherever you are. He gives hints for sharpening observational skills. And he encourages you to draw and record birds, insects, shells, animal tracks, and other finds from a busy day's watch.

Community Field Trips in South Dakota
CiCi's Pizza Field Trips
CiCi's Pizza offers Lunch & Learn Field Trips for school groups. This is a hands-on workshop at CiCi's designed by teachers to help kids develop basic math skills. Students use pizza ingredients and other related items to solve problems, and in the process make and enjoy their very own pizza! They offer beginner, intermediate and advanced math level curricula.
Factory Tours in South Dakota
Mt. Rushmore Black Hills Gold
Take a free tour of the most modern jewelry manufacturing company in the midwest. Mt. Rushmore Black Hills Gold is South Dakota's official state jewelry. What makes this jewelry so unique is the yellow gold grapes with leaf designs in shades of pink and green gold. The inspiration for the Black Hills Gold design dates back to the Black Hills gold rush of 1876 when a legendary French goldsmith named Henri LeBeau ventured to the Black Hills of South Dakota to seek his fortune in gold. After almost dying of starvation, he was saved when he found wild grapes. These grapes are recreated in this jewelry. Today Black Hills Gold is made only in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Zoos & Wildlife
Bramble Park Zoo
At the Bramble Park Zoo, located in Watertown, experience over 500 mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish and invertebrates representing 130 varieties from around the world and those native to South Dakota.
Great Plains Zoo & Delbridge Museum
Explore the animal world at the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls. Offers animal exhibits, special exhibits, and educational programs.
Field Trip Tips & Guidelines
How to Plan a Successful Field Trip
One of the highlights of homeschooling is a fun field trip. With the flexibility that homeschooling offers, the world is our oyster, right? Why read about something in a book when you can go experience it firsthand. Planning field trips, however, can be stressful. It doesn’t have to be, though. Read through tips that can help you plan successful field trips for your homeschool group.
Planning Homeschool Field Trips: 10 Things To Do Before You Go
Children enjoy field trips because they’re able to explore new destinations. Parents enjoy field trips because they offer children hands-on learning and specialized information. Farms, museums, gardens, landmarks, industrial centers, battlegrounds, and businesses are great field trip destinations. Educational opportunities at these sites are plentiful, so homeschool parents will want to venture out so their children can glean valuable information. However, in order to experience a worthwhile field trip, some advanced planning is necessary. Here are ten things to do before you go on a homeschool field trip.
Field Trip Report Form
This handy printable form lets your child record a written record of your field trip visit.
Field Trips in a Large Family
There are lots of things to love about a large family, but being agile and moving about quickly isn’t really one of them. Learning in action and experiencing something first hand is one of the best things about homeschooling. It’s often what really sets apart our education from that of a traditional brick and mortar school. It is worth it to make the effort for field trips, though it doesn’t necessarily make them any easier!
10 Tips for Finding and Planning Homeschool Field Trips
While it may be easy to understand the value in visiting the aquarium, history museums and other great field trips, a good field trip can provide much more than interesting facts and new discoveries. Field trips don’t have to be complicated or expensive in order to be effective. These ten tips will help make your planning go smoothly.
Homeschooling Field Trips :: Planning an Adventure
Field trips make learning fun for you and your kids, and they give everyone a break from the routine of books, pencils and computers. Field trips are a wonderful way to instill the value of lifelong learning in your children, as you both experience and discover new places together. Sometimes getting out of the house for a day gives you a little inspiration, or a spark of curiosity, reaffirming just why you chose to homeschool in the first place. These ideas will help you make the most of your field trips.
Field Trip Guidelines for Homeschool Groups
This letter can be used to establish an understanding about homeschool groups when you organize a field trip.
A Field Trip Should Not Be a Free-For-All
A reminder of the importance of teaching children respect and proper behavior when out enjoying field trips.
Organizing Homeschool Field Trips for Groups
Organizing group field trips is becoming a highly desired activity in homeschool support groups and co-ops. Not only do they offer social interaction but learning experiences as well. But without good planning, a field trip can end up being just a glorified play date. Home education time is limited, especially with the increasing number of extra curricular options for homeschoolers. Parents are becoming more selective of outside activities and attendance on group trips will fall off if participants aren’t seeing an educational benefit in addition to social time. This e-book will describe how to plan and host a great group field trip that will leave the participants anxious for more and perhaps even take a turn at planning themselves.
The Ultimate Guide to Field Trips for Homeschoolers
Field trips don’t have to be elaborate or cost of ton of money to be both fun and educational. Some of the best “field trips” are a nature walk and park lunch with friends. Especially when your children are young, keep them simple. Nature walks, zoos, and local places like the bakery, pizzeria, greenhouse, post office, police station, fire station, coffee shop, you name it you can tour it!
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Featured Resources

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