Thursday, April 3, 2008

Field Trips...Homeschooling Style



I quite often get asked what our next homeschooling field trip is going to be. While we have a couple of ideas in the discussion stage, we have no concrete plans just yet.

Our last one, which was our ultimate field trip, was one we all enjoyed. We embarked on a cross-Canada trip and while it involved a lot of relaxation and enjoyment, it was also very educational. It was amazing, even for us adults, how much more we learned about our great country by doing this than what we had learned (or could learn) from a text book.

It began in the summer of 2006 and we were living in Ontario at the time. In July, we left from Ontario and drove to British Columbia and then back to Ontario. We were home long enough to do some laundry, sort mail and then back on the road heading to the east coast of Canada. Our trip concluded with living in a small fishing village in Newfoundland for two months before returning to real life in Ontario.

I love the flexibility homeschooling offers. Although the western part of our trip took place over the summer months, the two months we spent in Newfoundland did not. We were able to bring our books and work here. We were also able to meet up with the active homeschooling group here and take part in some of their activities. The kids were able to make some more friends, from a different province, which they would not have had opportunity to do if they were in a regular school.

We were able to meet homeschooling families from across Canada, which was a blast!

We were able to see the differences in weather, culture (way of life, food etc.) and landscape of this great country. Even though we are the same country, each province was unique. It was amazing and breathtaking.

Hmmm......I wonder what we can do next.

1 comment:

Jacqueline said...

I've always wanted to make a cross Canada trip! What fun!