Homeschool Field Trips

We love the opportunity we have to homeschool. The kids feel more responsible for their education and ask to do and learn certain things. History continues to be a favorite subject for them. The kids can also focus on subjects they really enjoy. Cade and Abby spend hours and hours on math and computer programming. I'm amazed at how much they're learning and mastering.

Once a week, we leave our books and computers at home to explore and learn things in the world around us. Here's a sample of some of our field trips over the past few months.

Stanley Market

On a beautiful, sunny day in November, we ventured out to one of the popular tourist areas, Stanley. We walked around the small shops and stalls and found lots of fun little trinkets and souvenirs. Our favorite part of the trip was eating lunch along the waterfront

and climbing the big rocks and boulders.

Museums

The HK History Museum and HK Science Museum are located in the same area. In fact, the main entrances are directly across the plaza from each other. In the plaza there are giant dinosaurs that moan and groan and move slightly. 

The pteranodon even flaps his wings.

Although the dinosaurs in the plaza were mesmerizing, our first visit to this museum corridor led us to the History Museum. Since the kids' favorite subject right now is history we were pretty excited about this museum. Unfortunately, we were not impressed. Our disappointment is evident in the lack of pictures. The only proof we have of this field trip are the pictures with the dinosaurs outside in the plaza.

A few weeks later we returned to visit the Science Museum in hopes that the exhibits were more interesting and engaging. We were very impressed! There were many floors of exhibits and countless hands-on activities and demonstrations throughout the entire museum. There was no way we would be able to see and do everything so we focused on the dinosaur exhibit and promised to return again to explore more of the museum. The dinosaur exhibit had a number of mechanical replicas showing different aspects of dinosaur life. A Brachiosaurus moved his head, 

T-Rex growled ready to bite into a large pile of meat,

Ankylosaurus showed off his big pile of poop,

Triceratops tooted, and Velociraptor expressed different moods

depending on where you touched it (watch out for his scary face).

There were interactive fossil digging activities, life-size skeleton and skull replicas, a 3D movie, and  interesting facts and info about dinosaurs discovered in China.

Our most recent trip to the Science Museum was to play with the hands-on exhibits that we missed the first time. Some of the fun activities included making bubbles,

creating a cloud,

exercising,

driving,

and doing puzzles and brain teasers.

There's so much to see and experiment with at the Science Museum that we need to visit a few of more times this year.

Hong Kong Park and Aviary

Hong Kong Park is located in the middle of downtown with skyscrapers all around it and yet it utilizes much of the natural landscape to create a perfect little oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle. We've passed this area a number of times and never knew there was such a lush and peaceful get away so close to the  city.

 Inside the park is an aviary with many beautiful birds, including this bright and colorful

Black-capped Lory.

Ice Skating

Although we lived in Utah for a number of years, my kids' first experience with ice skating was in Hong Kong. Everyone was a little nervous but excited at the same time.

Ian and Leah had a "buddy" to help them keep their balance and learn to skate but they learned quickly that it's still hard to move around on skinny blades on ice.

Cade and Abby held onto the wall the first time around and discovered ice skating is much more difficult than it looks like on TV, especially watching those Olympic skaters.

Everyone slipped and fell and got frustrated and cried but they all got back up again and tried again. Little by little they got more confident and soon were able to skate around without holding on (except Leah - she never left her "buddy").

Ice skating is one of the more difficult activities we've done but the kids persevered and ended up having a good time. I'm so proud of them for not giving up. It wasn't their favorite field trip but they have asked "when are we going ice skating again?".

Learning and seeing new things is a fun way we use our weekly field trips.