Organizing field trips

I have felt called to share this information. I hope that it is helpful to someone. It has just been on my mind to actually put to writing some of what I do and share it so others might benefit. I am known in our local homeschool community for planning and organizing field trips. Everyone has a gift and the gift of organization is mine. For those of you that would like to do more field trips here are some ideas of where to go and what to do. This is generic so the ideas can be applied to any area. And also for those of you that are wondering this aspect - I will tell you ways to do them cheaply. Field trips do not have to cost you an arm and a leg - especially if you are willing to be the coordinator - you can really do it fairly cheaply - many times free to the coordinator. 

1) Museums - many museums offer classes for school groups and every museum I have ever contacted has allowed homeschoolers to be a school group. This will allow homeschoolers to take advantage of the much reduced rates. Most times, school group rates are much cheaper than regular entrance fees. Further, many of the museums also allow for 1 free chaperone per so many students. 

2) Local, city, state and national parks - these often have classes available for school groups and homeschoolers. They will often do guided tours. We have been on canoe trips through marshes with a guided naturalist. Some of the parks have archaeological finds that will be the topic used for tours and classes. National parks are usually free. Other ones have school group pricing. 

3) Nature centers - we have a fabulous nature center near us that also rehabilitates birds of prey. They can only keep birds of prey as long as they use them for educational purposes. So they offer classes on birds and will bring in real birds of prey to show the kids. We got to see a Barred Owl and a Red Tailed Hawk. 

4) Zoos - of course - an obvious place to go. Our local zoo has classes that normally run $20 per person if you signed up for them as a summer class --- for $2.00 per child for school groups. It is a fabulous rate. Plus at our local zoo, a company pays for the entrance fee if you attend in the months of Nov. through March. It is cheaper to do a class then it is to pay normal entrance fees to just walk around the zoo. 

5) Local companies - many times local companies will give tours of their facility. Sometimes they are set up for tours as they do it for the general public. Sometimes we have called and they have willingly just done tours for our group. One such company that did that was Carmex. They make lip balm and by talking to the owner (who was just a wonderful man) we got to tour the facility. Most tours of local companies are free. We have toured Trek Bycycle Corporation, Carmex, General Motors, Jelly Belly Center, Honey Acres Bee Farm, Widmer Cheese Factory, winery, recycling facilities, etc. 

6) Government --- government is owned by the people and therefore they are the most willing (within reason) to give tours. We have done some fabulous tours. The obvious are the local fire department, police department, Department of Public Works, library and post office. Some of the not so obvious would be to call the local mayor - we had one mayor of a local city in the area that when we were studying government - met with our group and talked about his role in government. Additionally he brought a city alderman with him. It was really great to learn about what an alderman's role is and how do the alderman and mayor work together. We went to the mayor's office and our meeting took place in the common council room. 

Those are some ideas to begin with. As I think of more I will update. We are expecting a huge storm and I need to shut down the computer - we get power surges that have been strong enough to get past the surge protector and ruin computer equipment. So we shut down when expecting strong storms. I will update more later.