It has long been known that students learn best when they're able to see knowledge in action - to see how something works, firsthand, and to experience it with five senses. One of the best sources of such knowledge is field trips.

In our school, field trips are an integral part of our learning experience. For almost every unit we study, we take some sort of field trips, some with our support group and some with our individual family school. These field trips have proven to be fruitful not only for the learning experience they have afforded our children, but also in development of social skills and personal relationships.

From my experience as field trip coordinator in both public school and homeschool settings, I have learned many things about what makes a field trip successful. There are definitely some field trip musts and a few must nots.  In this article, I hope to present, in a step-by-step fashion, things that are necessary in order to avoid negative experiences and keep your field trips running smoothly. I will be addressing this primarily as it applies to group field trips, although with only a few exceptions, these guidelines apply to individual family school trips, as well.

Step One: Get Organized
The first and most important MUST in planning any field trips is to get organized. The difference between a successful field trip and a field trip that fails to make the grade, is usually the degree of organization.

Organization actually needs to begin before you ever start setting up a potential field trip. Your thinking needs to be organized and your planning needs to be organized. Start formulating answers to important questions and thinking about any potential problems or obstacles before you ever make a phone call or send out a letter.

Field Trip Guidelines
The first thing to have in place is a general set of Field Trip Guidelines. When creating these guidelines, be certain to include your expectations for parents and for children, with regards to their responsibilities, their behavior, and their arrival time. The responsibility for following these guidelines is the burden of those who are participating. The responsibility for enforcing these guidelines is the burden of the field trip coordinator. If you are not comfortable enforcing expectations, I strongly suggest you do not coordinate a field trip.

Everyone participating in a field trips should have a copy of these guidelines. Email is an excellent method for distributing the guidelines, but photocopies can also be mailed for hand distribution at support group meetings, etc.

Within the guidelines I have established for group field trips, I remind participants that we and will be representing not only our own families and our own homeschools, but also our group and the homeschool community in general. I ask parents to take time before each field trip to remind their children of the appropriate behaviors for each event, including the use of quiet voices inside a building and silent attention when an adult is speaking. I have also included the established RSVP method; the preferred method for taking any monetary costs associated with a field trip; and the requirement that each family must have an adult with their children at all times and must be responsible for the safety and behavior of their own children.

Most importantly, within the Field Trip Guidelines, is the requirement that all families arrive at least 15 minutes before the start time of each field trip, unless otherwise stated. That means if a field trips is scheduled from 1-3pm, all participants must arrive no later than 12:45. This is crucial! Many times nametags must be distributed, groups must be divided, and specific rules and expectations for the location must be addressed. If families do not arrive 15 minutes before the start time, the trip will fail to begin on time facilitators in the community will be inconvenienced; and opportunities to participate in a hands-on manner may be diminished.

Field Trip File
The next organizational step is creating a Field Trip File. This file should include all field trip information and should be kept in a readily accessible location. If you are planning to have email RSVPs, I suggest keeping the file near your computer. If you will be depending on phone RSVPs, keep a file near your phone. Don't waste precious time looking for things you need. Keep the file in one place and always put it back where it belongs.

The things I suggest keeping in the Field Trip File include the following items:

Step two: Plan
After you are organized, you are ready to begin planning your field trip.

Destination Decision
Of course, the first step is to come up with a field trip opportunity or destination. When considering a location, keep in mind what you wish to accomplish with a particular trip. Depending on your group's situation, your primary goal may be to provide a learning experience; to provide an opportunity for some kind of cultural experience; or to provide an opportunity for students to interact with one another and develop personal relationships.

The best field trips include at least two of these opportunities and a good field trip schedule will allow opportunities for each of these things over the course of a year.

Also, consider whether the field trip you are considering will be appropriate for your group. Will it fit the temperaments of the children and the parents involved? Will it be too costly for some families, or too far to travel? Is the location a place that will handle a lot of people easily, or would this be a better trip for your individual homeschool family?

With these considerations in mind, select your destination. If you are at a loss for places to go on a field trip, talk to other homeschoolers about positive field trips they have taken. You can also watch the newspaper for upcoming events. If you think a tour of some particular place would be interesting, call and ask if field trips are a possibility and what the expectations and guidelines for such trips include.

Field trips can also include play days and other kinds of group activities, such as organized craft days or group story hours facilitated by the parents involved.

Working Out the Details
Once the destination is determined, it is time to work on the nitty gritty details. For this, I recommend using a Planning Sheet (as mentioned earlier). On this sheet, list all of the details you will need to know in order to successfully plan and coordinate a field trip that benefits the participants and the community facilitators. These things include the destination; the date; the time of the field trip; the estimated number of people attending; the RSVP number; the cost of the trip; the date money will be due; whether or not preschool siblings are welcome; directions to the location; any other specified information; and the name of the community contact person and their phone number.

Before making the first contact with personnel at the desired location, it is important that you select a tentative date on which you would like to visit the location; the time of day you prefer; and the estimated number of people who will be attending. All of these questions will most likely be asked when you first speak to the location coordinator. You do not want to waste someone's time while you flit through your calendar, and do your thinking and planning. These things need to be done before you pick up the phone.

Then selecting a date, try to find out if there is a day of the week that your group prefers. If Thursdays will not work for anyone in your group, it would be fruitless to plan a field trip on a Thursday. On the other hand, if most of your group prefers Friday field trips, it is logical that you would try to get a date on a Friday. If the preferred day of the week is unavailable, you do not necessarily need to abandon a field trip, but you do need to know that it may affect the number of participants. Follow this same guideline when trying to select a time of day that will work well for those involved. Will morning or afternoon field trips work best for the group?

Most times you will also need to have in mind an estimated number of people who will be attending the field trip before you plan your phone call. Many places need to know in advance how many people will be participating, so they can have the necessary number of staff members available to lead several small groups. Obviously, they must schedule these people long before your group arrives.

In order to determine how many people are interested in participating in field trips, ask at a group meeting, or first plan a trip to a park or the zoo or somewhere where the actual number of people attending doesn't affect anyone else's planning but yours. If neither of these options is available, ask the person you speak with if there is a limit to the number of participants and whether or not you can give them an exact number of participants a week before your scheduled tour or trip.

With this preliminary work done, you are ready to make contact with the personnel at your desired destination. When speaking with community facilitators, always be polite and professional, and do not take up unnecessary amounts of someone's time. Jot down any additional questions you may have on your planning sheet, and then make the call with that sheet in front of you. Get all the necessary information quickly and in only one phone call. Remember, the people who schedule field trips are scheduling for public, private, and homeschools, and often have other duties as well. Be very respectful of their time.

While talking to the scheduling person, be sure to find out how much, if any, monetary cost is involved; when that money must be received by the place of business you are going to visit and if one check is needed for the whole group; what age group the field trip is recommended for and if students of other ages are welcome; and how long the person you are talking to anticipates the field trip to last. Also, ask what will happen when your group arrives. Will it be necessary to divide your group into smaller groups, and if so, how many groups are needed? Ask what students will be learning and what kinds of things they will be doing and find out if there is any particular research or reading that should be done before the field trip that will help enrich the students' experience. many locations actually have teaching packets available for teachers to peruse before the field trips.

Always be certain to find out the expectations of the place you are visiting with regard to behavior, dress, etc. Finally do not hang up without confirming the name of the person with whom you are speaking. If questions or problems arise, you need to know who you have been working with, so you can contact them directly.

Step Three: Get the Information Out to the Group
Once everything is planned and the details are set, you need to get the information to your group as quickly as possible. The more notice people have of the upcoming event, the better the turnout and the more positive the experience.

Email works great to forward information quickly. For those who don't have email, use the phone. Have designated people call those without email. Preferably these people will have email themselves so they can email you all the responses. Email tends to save everyone time. Telephone calls can easily become lengthy and consume large amounts of time.

In the email notice, be sure you restate the arrival time (which, as we remember, is 15 minutes before the field trip is scheduled to begin). Give all the vital information previously discussed, and always require an RSVP by a given date. That may seem unnecessary if you are planning a play date or some other loosely organized event, but trust me, it is important to know how many people will be coming. There are always planning details that require knowledge of how many people will be attending. You may need to know how many picnic tables to push together; how much lemonade to provide; know many cookies to bring; how many crayons or markers will be needed, etc. It is also helpful to know that everyone who was planning to attend has arrive.

The RSVP date will depend on how much notice you need to give the community facilitator as far as the official RSVP number and how much time you need to prepare for the field trip. I always cut the RSVP time off 48 hours before the field trip. That gives me two days to take care of calling back and confirming our reservation and making nametags.

If money is require for the outing, be sure to include the collection deadline and the charge for each person. If a check needs to be mailed to the field trip facilitator by a certain date, make the RSVP date at least five days prior to that to ensure the checks are all deposited and your large check has time to arrive. Also, indicate that all money is nonrefundable. Most activities are such that money will not be refunded to you no matter how many people actually show up. You do not want to have to take money out of your own pocket to give a refund because someone's child got sick.

Most importantly, be very firm with you RSVP and money collection deadlines. Start with the "no exceptions rule" and don't break it. it will undoubtedly occur that someone will miss the deadline and call begging to have an exception made. Don't do it! It will end up costing you time and money, and it will compromise your professionalism with the place you are going. You need to be very kind in telling them that they missed the registration deadline, but you need to be very firm. It's almost a certainty that they will pay a little more attention to the deadline next time. PLEASE don't get in the habit of calling and changing reservation numbers, dates, etc. That is asking far too much of the people at the place you are going, and it reflects badly not only on you, but also on the homeschooling community, as a whole. The entire world runs on time schedules and deadlines. You will be doing the people in you group a favor to teach them to adhere to these deadlines, rather than to allow them to consistently ask for exceptions.

When you begin receiving RSVPs, keep a careful record in your Field Trip File of who will be participating. You will need this information when calling in your final reservation and when making nametags. Remember, an RSVP alone is not enough if money is needed in advance. If the deadline comes and you only have an RSVP, don't count on the money coming. It's up to you whether or not you call a few days ahead to remind people of the approaching deadline if they have not responded. I prefer to make people responsible for themselves, but I have given people a quick call or emailed them to remind them I need their check in a few days.

Step Four: The Final Preparations
When the RSVP deadline has passed, call in your final reservation. While you are on the phone with the contact person, double-check to make sure you know how many groups will be needed and if there is any other information you need to know. Remember, you are not going to allow RSVPs after this point.

Prepare nametags for all those who will be attendance, including the parents. If smaller groups will be needed, you need to take care of dividing families into groups in advance. This is an excellent opportunity to separate children who may have a hard time behaving when they are together, or putting families together who haven't had the opportunity to get acquainted yet. It is a good idea to designate one parent in each group as the lead mom (or dad). This will help the group leader or tour guide if he/she has a question or a problem. It also designates one person as being in charge, and thus responsible to see that everyone is behaving in the correct manner.

Sometimes groups are divided by age. In these cases, make sure parents know ahead of time that they may not be with their own children, so they can prepare them for this and remind them they will need to obey the group leader.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I use computer labels for nametags. They are easy to generate and do not involve a significant expense. Whatever you use, make sure the names are printed largely and clearly. First names are sufficient, except for parents. The preference is to have their nametags say, Mrs. Beckstrom, Mrs. Jones, Mr. Smith, etc.

If your large group is being divided into smaller groups, make some indication on the nametag what group each person is in. This will help keep everyone together and will make it easy to return any straying person to the proper place. I usually just take different color markers and draw a star or flower or something in different colors on the nametags. This is quick and easy and serves the purpose.

It's usually a good idea to send out one last email reminder of the place and time to meet, along with any directions needed to get there.

Step Five: The Day of the Field Trip
With everything so well organized and planned, the field trip day should be a great success. You will only have a few things left to do before the field trip beings and then you will be able to enjoy the outing and learn right along with the other participants. When the day of the field trip arrives, get your Field Trip File and head for the location. You should have the name tags and any other information needed for the field trip already in your Field Trip File. Remember to arrive 15 minutes early!

Arriving on time and being prepared to start on time is the most important thing you have left to remember. As soon as you arrive, locate your contact person and introduce yourself to them. Let them know your group will be ready in 15 minutes (the time the field trip is scheduled to begin). When others begin arriving, get their nametags on and get them divided into their respective groups. Talk to the group, as a whole, reminding them of the expectations for conduct and behavior and what to expect to see, hear, or do during the field trip. Be sure to identify the lead moms to everyone and then introduce the group to the person in charge. If you have done your work properly and have chosen a good field trip destination, you should have a very successful field trip.

Two Items of great Importance:
I need to stress two very important items, both of which are critical to homeschoolers.

The homeschooling community's acceptance and approval by other members of our community depends, in part, on our reputation as being people of our word and people of respect. When we fail to respect other people's efforts on our behalf, and when we fail to keep the agreed upon schedule, we fail to impress others as being a responsible, accountable part of the community.

A business frequented by field tripping homeschool groups had just had a very bad experience due to the behavior of a touring homeschool group when one of my friends visited their establishment. She walked in to overhear them discussing how awful homeschoolers were and how much they wished they never had another group of homeschoolers come through. This very attitude reflected when I later tried to schedule a field trip to that location. Although we were able to schedule a field trip, it was a very dismal experience because the tour guides were noticeably prejudiced against homeschooling groups and, in fact, I was later told that little effort had been made to assign the best guides to our tours because of past experiences with homeschool groups. "I have a very hard time finding a guide who will even accept homeschooling groups anymore," I was told. "The best ones feel like it is a waste of their time and energy because the students are often unruly and inattentive." This was not the comment of someone who was opposed to homeschooling, but rather a sad commentary on the lack of respect shown by homeschooling groups he had encountered.

I am discussing all of this to point out that our actions reflect on the entire homeschooling community. Many places are excited to work with us. Some places even seek us out. However, other places are more hesitant or even resistant to our requests to visit their domains. How we act, what image we present, and how respectful we are of time and scheduling will determine whether or not other homeschoolers will be welcome for a field trip experience.

Field trips are definitely worth the effort they require. They can be so much fun and are such wonderful opportunities for experiencing knowledge in action. But the coordinator of a field trip must be willing to enforce the rules and require timely arrivals. If this is not your personality, find a way to be the right-hand man of the person who can do the job well. Encourage them and be a responsible participant, but do not undertake a task that you cannot successfully orchestrate in its entirety. If, however, you do possess the leadership skills necessary to be field trip coordinator, I would encourage you to undertake the talk. If you keep your efforts directed and organized, you will find that your field trip experiences will be far more positive than negative and that the rewards will far outweigh the work involved.

Lori Beckstrom is a homeschooling mom from Wichita, Kansas. Reprinted by permission from C.H.E.C.K. News, February 2001.