Finance Friday: 5 Ways to Save For Educational Trips

Field trips and saving #homeschool #homeeducation

Education doesn’t start and stop while your child is in school. Of course we accept that as truth for homeschoolers, but home education isn’t limited to homeschooling. Real intergrated learning tends to go well beyond the four walls of a classroom. Growing up I realized, the more I could relate to a subject the more I would be able to remember it. One of the best ways to get your kids learning and remembering substance about their subjects is to expose them to real life experiences. These experiences will help them see how the lessons were applied and used.  Through their formative years, I believe field trips provide real life situations that help students retain information and develop a passion for learning.

Unfortunately, due to school budget cuts many fine art activities and field trips are cut. Students are now  spending more time in classrooms, which isn’t bad, but if they are doing so at the expense of field trips, then their firsthand knowledge is being limited.

If there was a subject in school I favored the most, it would definitely be field trips. To me field trips were real opportunities for hands-on learning, and as a visual learner those experiences were invaluable to me. In fact, now I am over 30 years old and I can tell you, I can remember every field trip that I ever went on, they meant so much to me.

Why did field trips have such a huge impact on me? Well, the website “Education Next” published an article that shares a field trip study conducted by Jay P. Greene, professor of education reform; Brian Kisida, a senior research associate; and Daniel H. Bowen a doctoral student at the University of Arkansas. Their report sheds some light on the impact students receive from educational field trips, like museums. The students in their study, visited an art museum. At the museum they received a directed tour and afterwards were able to recall specific facts from their tour. What’s fascinating is that “The high rate of recall of factual information by students who toured the museum demonstrates that the tours made an impression. The students could remember important details about what they saw and discussed.” However, even beyond recalling information, . . .” students randomly assigned to receive a school tour of Crystal Bridges later displayed demonstrably stronger ability to think critically about art than the control group.” Please take a few minutes to read their study in it’s entirety: The Educational Value of Field Trips. I believe educational field trips can help bring school books to life and should be experienced by all children.

Field Trips Savings Tips

If you are committed to enriching your child’s learning through field trips, here are a few ways to save while doing so.

  1. Go online and search for a discount. Discounts often come in the following ways: size of group, school /homeschool related, age, or membership. If you can not find out what discounts are offered online call and ask.
  2. Put money aside for trips. Create a plan to save. Add field trips to your budget if you have children to help enrich their studies.
  3. Go on free trips. There are a lot of local resources across the world they don’t cost, research them and make a new list each year listing the trips that you want to see that school year.
  4. Fundraise for the money. When I think of school fundraisers, I’m talking about for big trips where you may need a plane ticket, hotel, rental car, or other things that may cost more than a local down the street trip would. Traveling out of the country is important to help children see how different people live outside their own area.
  5. Earn the money. On this blog I have shared some great ways to earn passive income that has worked for me. To see my suggestions visit the links below. (The first group is how to earn money through sells, the second group is how to earn money by reducing current bills.) 

Reader Question: Can you think of ways taking field trips in school enriched your education?

Reference: Jay P. Greene, Brian Kisida and Daniel H. Bowen. The Educational Value of Field Trips. Education Next. Retrieved January 15, 2016 from http://educationnext.org/the-educational-value-of-field-trips/

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