Homeschooling Tips - The year end Field Trips - A walk in the sunshine leads to a visit to the Museum

Nothing inspires a 5 year old to paint like modern art am I right? It's that time when homeschool teachers evaluate ourselves and what we have taught our kids over the last school year, how did we do everyone? I for one am the type who forgets to take vacations and holidays off until I realize all the public school kids are running around, so remembering field trips gets tricky.
Spring is here and the weather is finally going in our favor but there are a few weeks left to the school year for me, we don't break until mid June. So how do we keep our kids learning when it is just to nice be buried in book and paper work?
A day out in the city is how we do it in my neck of the woods.
We walk as much as possible so the kids get as many chances to stop and smell the flowers as possible,

Kids love that. Stopping at shops and supervising them while they purchase a treat for themselves is a great way to get a quick lesson on developing social skills and the values of money, I've never hear my kids complain about learning things that way ;).
With special vittles in hand, kids will wear a smile the whole way to where they're going and it helps make a trip to the museum something they look forward to. It helps keep that good morale going once you arrive as well. sometimes it can be tough to get little boys to fully appreciate paintings,

but there's something for everyone if your willing to look.

We all have different ways of having fun, I may myself have stayed to long in the antique craftsmanship gallery for the kids liking, but who can blame me when there's craftsmanship like this on display?

Well maybe they're not ready to get into fine furniture making but it's never too early to try and teach them I'd say.

To make up for the "Dad Stuff" they have to do it think it's fun to let the little ones take the camera and get some pictures of the things they find most interesting though.

Talk about a great day of school right? We all had fun and saw some great stuff. The timing of our field trip coincided with a public school's class visit and real quick I wanted to point out some differences that were easy to see.
The first and most noticeable was that the public school kids were dressed like it was still 5 am when it was 45 degrees F even though it close to 90 F by the afternoon that day. They started getting on buses before the sun cam up and had to prepare accordingly for the cold, no one around here predicted it would turn out to be such a nice day. That alone was enough to make more than half of each group look miserable, especially when they were in the humid basement sections.
Speaking of the basement sections, while my family was bouncing around the place looking anywhere and everywhere, these kids were in stuffy basement classrooms doing arts and craft for probably hours on end. There are only about an hour, maybe two worth of exhibits to check out so I can only imagine how long they were stuck down there. Only a few of them were actually interested in the activity the were supposed to be occupied by and the rest looked out forlornly when we passed, like convicts being forced to pick up refuse on the side of the highway. It was a little creepy, but mainly I was sad that I couldn't help them.
When we were leaving there was a group of kids going as well. Instead of skipping and singing like kids that age I'm used to being around, they were shuffling their feet, marching onto their long yellow bus single file with their eyes cast low. Again that invoked the same feeling and made me wonder how much of their day was wasted standing around in the cold and then the heat waiting for busses, it got me writing this article.
We went on to the nearest park where the kids got to run off all that pent up energy and let out the yells they built up in the quiet place we came from. On the way back to our house we stopped and got ice cream, a reward for behaving so well and making the day as fun as it was.
The contrasts were inescapable and really reaffirmed that the effort I'm putting into raising my kids is worth all the sacrifices that it takes. If you're a teacher like me and have instincts say to grind and work hard above all else, you may forget to get out and have some fun, I hope this post helps to remind a few people to take advantage of the beautiful spring weather and get that fresh air. It will help show you the value of the work you've put in this year I bet!
If there is even a chance that you are considering homeschooling you children I highly recommend doing so and would love to help. It could be fun to try preparing a small lesson for a field trip just test how it will work for your family, that's a great way to spend a Saturday either way for sure. Let me know what you all do for your school excursions in the comments and I'll get right back.
Thanks for reading everyone, have a wonderful day!