One of the things I love about homeschooling is going on field trips. You are not limited to how many field trips you can take in a school year. We are part of an amazing co-op called Urban Stars where moms come up with amazing field trips to take our children on. We meet on Fridays, so most of our field trips are on that day unless I decide to take my kids on a field trip during the week.

Field trips serves 3 purposes for my homeschool.

1. It enhances a subject matter. Your kids are learning while engaging their senses. Sight, gives visual stimuli. Touching gives a hand on approach to learning. Hearing the information engages the auditory learner. Tasting engages your taste buds and makes learning something to look forward to. We love the field trips that engages the taste buds. We never forget those field trips.

2. It is a great way for my kids to learn something new.

3. It is a great way to break up the mundane of homeschooling.

Hopefully you can get some great ideas for your homeschool. So here are some of the field trips we’ve been on this school year.

Library. I got this idea while I was looking at another homeschool mom youtube video on field trips. Her channel is called A Place to Nest. Check her out, you might get some awesome field trips ideas yourself. Since we go to the library all the time, I thought it would be a great field trip for me and my family. We not only got a tour of the library but we talked about different genre of books. Our tour guide included story time for my kids and we got to make our own books. Because of that field trip, my kids know what sections and genre to find the books they love and they love making their own books.

Billy Goat Chip Company is a local company in the Saint Louis, Mo. area and our homeschool co-op got a chance to visit their factory and learn about how the company first got started. We learned about entrepreneurship, branding and marketing. We got a personal tour of the factory from the owner himself who’s name is Chef Brian Roth. We learned the science behind how Billy Goat chips are made and got an opportunity to see process from start to finish. My kids loved seeing the process of how they were made and the owner gave each one of us a freshly packaged bag of Billy Coat chips. The chips were delicious and brusting with flavor!

Before the tour I had never heard of Billy Coat chips. That tour taught me a lot about brand awareness. My husband took 2 of our daughters, who are ages 5 and 6, to a local grocery store in my neighborhood where they carried the Billy Goat chips. My husband walked down an isle and the girls instantly spotted the chips. They were so excited and shared a lot of infomation with my husband about how the chips were gluten free and vegan friendly of couse that sold my husband because he is very health concious. He came home with 6 bags of Billy Goat chips a bag for each person in my house. I did not know my children where listening to all the health pros about buying Billy Goat chips but they were. I was highly impressed.

Audubon Center at Riverlands mission is to connect people to the beauty and significance of the Mississippi River and the Great Rivers confluence, to inspire conservation of the river’s rich diversity in birds, wildlife and other natural resources, and to support healthy, vibrant communities. This was a very fun trip for our co-op. When we arrived they had different stations set up for group rotation so you can learned different things about bird life. Here are some of the exciting things my chlidren learned. We took a class and learned about different types of birds and got to touch their skeleton skulls and feet. Then we got to look through telescopes to see wildlife up close. We went out doors and did an activity that is called geocaching. For those of you who have never heard of geocaching because this was my family first time learning about it as well.

Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity in which participants use a Global Positioning System receiver or moblie device and other natvigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called “geocaches” or “caches”, at specific locations marked by coordinates all over the world.

My advice is to go when it is warm outside. It was very windy and cold when we did it but my kids had so much fun and ask me often can we go geocaching in a park by our house that offers it.

We wrapped our field trip up by making homemade bird feeders which each child got to take home to hang up outside. The childern also got to paint a collective painting and were sent home with a wonderful curriculum book called Our Mississippi Educational Activies. The whole family can learn from this cirriculum because it is fun and informative and the whole course is free. You can download in a pdf file or ask them to send it to you in book form.

Piccione Pastery is another fun field trip we went on with our homeschooling group. Piccione Pastery which is located in the heart of the Delmar Loop, in Saint Louis Mo. and is a late-night pastry shop which embraces the time honored traditions in Italian baking. Urban Stars co-op are so grateful to the owners Richard Nix Jr. And his wife Elizabeth for giving us a tour of their family owned bakery which was inspired by his grandmother Grace Viviano Piccione. Piccione, which means pigeon in Italian, are known for their famous handmade cannolis, pastries, cakes and cookies. We learned all the ins and outs of what it takes to run a bakery. We learned the science behind making delicious Italian desserts. They also gave us a tour of where all the yumminess take place. We learned a little history about Piccione which all can be found on their website. Then, they so graciously ended our tour by letting us make our own cannolis. I think this was the yummiest field trip we’ve ever been on. The cannolis were amazingly delicious. My daughter reminds me every Tuesday it is cannolis day, because you can buy cannolis for only 2 dollars from the 7-9pm. They not only offer yummy treats, you can have lunch or brunch at their cafe.

We also went on more field trips like the zoo, magic house and science center. I will do another blog post about those field trips. I wanted to write about these because I think these were our most exciting and memorable field trips so far.

Special thanks to our homeschool momas who plan awesome events that our family can enjoy.

I would love to hear from my homeschooling momas, please leave a comment, and by all means subscribe to Breakthrough Blog 4 Women. Follow me on my social media link down below. If you know a homeschooling moma that can benefit from this blog post, please share it with them. You can follow me on Instagram by clicking on the word Instagram.

Coach Angie!

http://www.noboundariesbtc.com