A day out with the kids can be more than an opportunity to get out of the house. It can also be a time for family bonding. On top of this, it can be turned into an educational experience in which kids can learn various things about the world and life in general. Below are just a few different ways in which you can make family days out educational.
Visit educational places
There are many attractions that encourage learning including museums, zoos, discovery centers and kids’ workshops. These are a great place for an educational day out with kids – certainly more so than a day out to an amusement park or indoor play center. Consider planning a few days out to these types of places so that kids can associate learning with fun experiences.
Drop some facts
Days out to new places are likely to expose kids to all kinds of new things. These new experiences can offer the opportunity to educate kids with facts that they may not know. Curious kids may even have lots of questions to ask you. Make sure that you don’t dismiss these questions.
Encourage them to read things
A day out could also be a chance to improve reading skills. There are likely to be all kinds of things that kids can read including informational plaques, guidebooks, menus and signs. Actively encourage young kids to read these aloud as an opportunity to build vocabulary.
Do some practical math
A family day out could also offer the opportunity to practice math skills in a practical setting. This could include helping to count change or read prices. You could even set a budget for a day and ask kids to track your budget – educating kids on how to use money as well as on how to use math.
Take an activity worksheet
There are sites like LearnBright that allow you to download activity worksheets to take on various days out. These activity sheets can encourage kids to take in information and repeat it on paper. Some places will supply their own activity worksheets that kids can use – make sure to look into these when you arrive.
Quiz them
To help gain an understanding of what kids have learnt throughout the day, you could consider quizzing them after. You could even write down questions throughout the day based on facts that you’ve learnt to question kids later with. This is a great way of challenging kids to retain information. To make such quizzes more fun, you also encourage kids to create questions for you – challenging you to learn in the process.
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