Homeschooling resources– Lesson plan for a day out to the museum in London

Education isn’t about being head down in books all day long and a trip to the museum can be fun and educational in many ways. This task aims to allow your child to use as many skills as possible from visiting a museum whilst still getting maximum fun out of your ordinary family day out.

I have listed 10 questions or tasks that your child could follow with you supporting them where necessary. Free to download.

Homeschooling is all about choosing work and activities for your children that you think will be suitable for your children’s age and ability so you will need to take a look at the task and support them where necessary.

But for the sake of giving an approximate age then I would say it is suitable for ages of above 8yrs, providing you are following the above recommendations

The task encourages children to arrange the day out for themselves (with your help if need be). They can first decide what they think they would learn from visiting a museum and compare it to what they did learn after they have visited the museum.

They will learn skills on how to menu plan, how to choose the most appropriate clothes for the trip, how to plan an event, how to map read, how to use the internet for research, how to find out the price of travel, using a camera, using a printer and writing skills.

They will also learn independence skills as well as getting enjoyment and satisfaction out of taking parents out for the day, instead of the other way around.

1. Write down what skills you think you would learn from a day out to a museum. You can use an example if you want, such as this one: “If I went to the science museum I would learn…”
2. Write down what you think would make a suitable and cost effective pack lunch to take on a day trip to a museum.
3. Research museums in London and choose one that you would like to go to.
4. Look on a tube map and write down how you would get there from your local train station. State which line you are talking about when writing your answer down, example: Jubilee Line etc
5. Using the internet, find and print up a map that details how you would get to the museum once you had got off of the train at the relevant train stop.
6. Find out what the train tickets would cost for return fares for an adult and a child. Explain what method you used to find out the prices.
7. What clothes do you think would be most suitable for this trip and why?
8. What else might be good things to take with you, other than a packed lunch?
9. Let your parent/guardian know how much the trip is going to cost, see if they can afford it and arrange for a day to go to the museum, with you leading the way. If you have a camera, take some photos for memories.
10. Write about the trip. Were you well prepared? Did you have enough food to eat? Would you do anything differently next time? Did you enjoy the trip? What was good and what was bad about it? What did you learn from it?

Why not use the photographs to make a scrapbook page as a memory of your day out or consider using them to make a PowerPoint presentation.

You can download this task as a pdf file to print and use at home.