Family vacations—they’re a vacation from home but they don’t have to be a vacation from learning. Tune in as Mike Smith talks with Educational Travel on a Shoestring co-author Melissa Morgan on today’s Home School Heartbeat.
Mike Smith:
Melissa, can you give some examples of how the parent’s perspective of any outing—big or small—is what makes the trip, “educational”?
Melissa Morgan:
Homeschooling doesn’t just mean education at home, learning can happen everywhere: in the car, in the store, with friends or neighbors. Almost every event in every moment can have a purpose in training up a child in the way he should go. The key is interest in your activities, what do you and your kids get excited about? Adults, develop some of your own interests, share your knowledge with your children and each other. Also, try and understand and share something that your kids like to do. I’ve had parents say, “But my kids don’t really have any interests except maybe video games.” Even an interest in video games can provide a clue to creative interests that can be developed, especially involving active, hands-on experiences such as job shadowing at a software firm, participating in a traveling puppet ministry, or exploring a museum of science and industry. Educational travel doesn’t need to be expensive or complicated; it can mean a trip to the grocery store on the other side of town, taking a chance on buying and cooking a new vegetable that you are unfamiliar with. Or, educational travel could mean a trip to all fifty states. Getting a hands-on look at the political process or perhaps flying to the end of the world as missionaries. Educational travel means far more than just museums, it can mean chocolate factories, underground railroad homes, college campus visits, concerts performed by students, frog jump festivals, municipal state parks, and horse riding camps.
Mike:
Those are great ideas, Melissa. And until next time, I’m Mike Smith.
