Start Getting Out of the House: Home School Outdoor Activities & More

Getting Out of the House Is a Great Way to Enhance Your Homeschool Experience

Homeschooling your children doesn’t necessarily mean being at home all of the time. In fact, getting out of the house is an important part of the home school experience. With the flexibility and freedom that home school provides, homeschooled children can explore new places much more often than their peers—or they can simply enjoy the weather on a nice day with home school outdoor activities.

This is part of our series of Getting Started Guides. In this Guide, we provide suggestions for home school outdoor activities as well as other options for getting out of the house when homeschooling. At the end, we spotlight our free and low-cost suggestions, and we provide some additional tips for staying within your home school budget. We provide some tips for incorporating these activities into your home school schedule as well.

7 Ideas for Home School Outdoor Activities

We’ll start with some ideas for getting outdoors. For many parent-educators and other caregivers, one of the great joys of homeschooling is getting to spend days with their children outside. There’s just something special about spending a perfect day under the sun. Of course, cloudy days can be fun too; and, even if the weather isn’t picture perfect, this shouldn’t stop you from homeschooling outdoors for at least part of the day.

How can you get your children (and yourself) outdoors? Here are seven ideas for home school outdoor activities:

1. A Reading Picnic

Why not have a picnic? While you’re at it, why not incorporate some reading?

Working with your children, plan a picnic lunch. Figure out what you can make with what you have in the kitchen. Then, when it’s time, gather everything you’ll need for lunch, and go outdoors. Take some books your children are currently reading with you, or pick out a new book that you can read together.

You can either read out loud to your children over lunch, take turns reading, or have everyone read silently before or after you’re done eating. Talk about what you’ve read (or what you are planning to read), and encourage your kids to share their ideas about what they might want to read or write next.

2. A Trip to a Local Park

Chances are, you don’t live far from a park. Going to a local park is a great way to get outside during the home school day. If you aren’t sure where your nearest park is located, you can check your state’s and county’s park websites.  

What should you do once you get there? You can take your reading picnic, or you can take the lesson and materials you were planning to introduce at home. You can also combine visiting a local park with taking a hike, doing a scavenger hunt, or any of the other home school outdoor activities discussed below.

3. A Hike or Nature Walk

You can take a hike or nature walk at a local park, or you can take a nature walk out your front door. It doesn’t matter where you go, as long as you get outside. Before you go, plan a lesson that you can give while you are walking, or plan to talk about what you see. Look up (or have your kids look up) information about your local flora and fauna, and then have them do additional reading or research on the things you see once you get back home.

In many parks, you can take a guided nature walk. If you and your children can learn from a park ranger while exploring the outdoors, this can take some of the burden off of your shoulders while also providing your children with the opportunity to engage with someone new in an educational way.

4. An Outdoor Scavenger Hunt

You can also combine a trip to a local park or a nature walk in your neighborhood with an outdoor scavenger hunt. You can come up with a scavenger hunt yourself, or you can choose one from our scavenger hunt booklet.

Scavenger hunts are fun for children of all ages; and, in our scavenger hunt booklet, we provide tips for tailoring our scavenger hunts for children in different age groups. Similar to some of our other suggestions for home school outdoor activities, you can also combine scavenger hunts with lessons—such as lessons on numbers, colors, plants, or animals.

5. An Outdoor-Themed Lesson

If you’re going outdoors, why not give an outdoor-themed lesson? This could be a lesson on plants, animals, geology, meteorology, or just about anything else your children will see or experience during the day. You can pick something you children are interested in already, or you can use your outdoor-themed lesson as an opportunity to introduce something completely new.

6. A Nature-Based Project

Doing a nature-based project is another great idea for doing home school outdoors. For younger children, this could be making a collage or mimicking a famous painting using objects they find on the ground. For older children, this could be finding different types of leaves to study or learning about cloud types or celestial navigation. There are countless options; and, here too, you can let your children’s interests take the lead or take the opportunity to introduce something that might be far less interesting to learn from a book or computer inside.

7. A New Outdoor Experience

As a parent- or caregiver-educator, you can also use time outdoors to introduce your children to new experiences. Depending on where you live, some examples of options that may be available include:

• Birdwatching
• Gemstone hunting
• Kayaking or canoeing
• Rock climbing
• Sailing
• Surfing
• Skateboarding

There are places you can go for all of these; and, for options like kayaking, rock climbing, sailing, surfing, and skateboarding, you can schedule a lesson or hire a private coach for the day. Each of these provide opportunities to expand your children’s interests, capabilities, and horizons. And, who knows? These could even become lifelong interests—or even professional ambitions—in some cases.

7 More Ideas for Getting Out of the House When Homeschooling

Along with getting outdoors—which you should absolutely do—getting out of the house when homeschooling can involve visiting other places as well. Here are seven more ideas for out-of-the-house homeschool activities:

1. Visiting a Zoo or Aquarium

Visiting a zoo or aquarium can be fun and educational for children of all ages. As your children get older, to make visiting the zoo or an aquarium more than just a day out of the house, incorporate additional educational elements such as a study of a particular animal or a deep dive into how zoos or aquariums operate.

2. Visiting a Nature Center

Visiting a nature center similarly offers educational opportunities for children of all ages. Nature centers often have scheduled talks and hands-on times with certain animals; and, in many cases, home school parents and other caregivers can schedule private or small-group tours as well.

3. Visiting a Museum

There are so many different types of museums, and there are so many different things to learn at all of them. Schedule a day to visit a local museum and see (and learn) as much as possible. Or, if you have access to multiple museums, schedule a whistlestop tour with a specific objective to achieve at each one. For example, you could task your children with finding a particular exhibit at each museum; or, you could make a plan to visit exhibits that all relate to a particular subject or a particular period of time.

4. Visiting a Library

Libraries offer a variety of options for homeschooling out of the house, and they are generally free. You can find a quiet place to do a lesson or read if you just want a change of scenery, you can teach your children how to find books, or you can task them with creating a research project and then finding the materials they need. Many public libraries also offer classes, reading and activity groups, and other scheduled events for homeschool families.

5. Visiting a Historical Site

Historical sites range from markers and monuments to houses and government buildings. You can research historical sites in your local area online, and then you can schedule a lesson outside of the house based on where you have the opportunity to go. This can be a great option for starting a new area of study or for bringing something your children have already studied to life.

6. Taking a Guided Tour

Taking a guided tour of a historical site or getting a behind-the-scenes look at a zoo, aquarium, or museum is another way to give your children the opportunity to engage with an adult who is an expert in their chosen field of study. If you live in a famous or historical city, you can also be a tourist in your own town and take a tour you might not take otherwise.

7. Shopping for Supplies or Materials

Taking your children shopping for supplies or materials is another option for getting out of the house when homeschooling while also teaching your children lessons on practical life. A well-prepared shopping trip can involve planning, budgeting, calculating, and navigating—and, when you get back home, your children will have what they need for their next project with a better understanding of where these items come from and what it takes to get them.

Spotlight: Free & Low-Cost Home School Activities Outside of the Home

While it is easy to find activities outside of the house that cost money, spending the day outdoors or somewhere new doesn’t have to be expensive. Recapping some of what we’ve covered above, here are some examples of free and low-cost home school activities outside of the home:

• Taking Your Normal Home School Day Outside – Taking your normal home school day outside is something you can do on a regular (or semi-regular) basis without additional cost. Even if you plan a reading picnic, you’ll need to eat lunch anyway, and you (or your children) can make a picnic with food you already have at home.
• Visiting a Park with Free Entry – Many public parks still offer free entry, and some have entry fees of just a dollar or two. When looking at your county’s or state’s park website, you should be able to find out if you’ll have to pay to visit a particular park. If you can’t find this information online, you can call before you go.
• Doing a Scavenger Hunt – You can create a scavenger hunt yourself, or our booklet of scavenger hunts cost less than one dollar per hunt. You can do an outside scavenger hunt in your yard or neighborhood, or you can take one with you to a local park.
• Public Library Classes, Groups, and Events – As we discussed above, public libraries often offer classes, groups, and events for homeschool families during traditional school hours. These are typically free or low-cost opportunities for getting out of the house and engaging with your community.
• Taking Advantage of Free Entry Days – Many parks, museums, and other places of interest occasionally offer free entry days. You can look for information about free entry days on these locations’ websites or on social media.

Many parks, museums, and other places of interest also offer homeschool discounts—which they may or may not publicize. This can help reduce the cost of homeschooling outside of the house, and it can potentially give your children the opportunity to visit somewhere new that they might not have the chance to visit otherwise.

Incorporating These Activities Into Your Home School Schedule

Now that you have some ideas for home school outdoor activities and other ways to homeschool outside of the house, how can you incorporate these activities into your home school schedule?

If you’re just taking your normal home school day outside, you can do this on a whim. If it’s nice out, grab a blanket, have your kids grab what they need, and then go outdoors.

If you’re going someplace away from home, then you’ll need to do a bit more planning. You’ll want to choose a day that works with your overall home school schedule and any extracurricular activities. If you’ll need to drive for an hour or more, you will want to factor this into your planning as well. We recommend planning days away from the house in your home school planner. Here, you can see where a day away from home fits in best, and you can plan out your entire day—from lessons and materials to means and transportation.

Get More Advice and Resources to Help You Crush Home School

If you would like more advice on how to curate your children’s educational experience and help them get the most out of homeschool, consider becoming a Crush Home School member. Each month, our members receive a membership package via email that includes recommended activities and schedules, exclusive resources, and much more. Members also receive a 10% discount on all of the other resources on our side. Learn more about the Crush Home School membership.