Virtual Field Trips

Hello,

How many of you take field trips with your kids? Probably all of you. BUT, how many of you take your students to visit Ellis Island or the Smithsonian museum? Probably none of you since money, time, and distance prohibit this. However, you can take them on virtual field trips to these places and more. A couple of years ago I found a website from Scholastic with virtual field trips.

Here’s the link: http://www.scholastic.com/livewebcasts/webcast_tips.htm

I know you. You don’t have time right now to browse the site and see what’s there. You’ll do it later. But when ‘later’ comes, you will forget all about this site or you won’t remember what the site was and this information will just fly right out the window. So, just to help you remember, I’ll list the information quickly here and that may help a bit.

VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS
Grades 3 and up Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
Grades 3 – 8 Ellis Island
Grades 3 – 8 The American Museum of Natural History (NYC)
Grades K – 8 The First Thanksgiving: Plimoth Plantation
Grades 2 – 8 Magic School Bus: Liberty Science Center
Grades K – 6 Winter’s Tail: Clearwater Marine Aquarium

VIRTUAL AUTHOR VISITS
I’m not going to list all of the authors, but I notice in the listings, that a number of the author visits have multiple authors. I would suggest that you preview these first to familiarize yourself with the authors and their books. R. L. Stine writes the Goosebumps series and I doubt that his books are in your libraries. J. K. Rowling writes Harry Potter, and Rick Riordan writes high fantasy. It may be that these authors are speaking about the writing process rather than promoting their books, but that is why I suggest you watch it first to decide if the particular episode is what you want.

LITERACY EVENTS – There are a number of events for all ages from Clifford’s Birthday Party for K – 2 to the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for grades 7 and up.

These virtual field trips are great if only for the reason that they can be paused and returned to at a later time rather than a live event that must be viewed in one sitting or you miss it.

I hope you are able to visit the website and find out for yourself what is available for FREE from the Internet.

Audrey