The Sandwich Approach: Prepare-Experience-Review By Jessica Hulcy

As a high school junior, I was a foreign exchange student to Northern Ireland, experiencing the ultimate field trip by living in Ireland. My Irish father was a butcher raising cattle, so this city girl learned to drive a tractor, pitch hay bales, and tend cattle. I was the first female ever to want to visit the slaughterhouse. I learned about socialized medicine and witnessed the atholic!"rotestant conflict that dated bac# centuries. I ba#ed tea ca#es once a wee# with my Irish mother on a cast$iron stove. I traveled to %cotland with my Irish father and brothers to buy the smallest car I had ever seen. I learned Irish songs and dances. My Irish grandfather too# me to climb the &iant's auseway, a geological wonder . . . and the entire family and friends watched me water s#i in the North Atlantic in a wetsuit, thin#ing this (exan would love it. All I could thin# about was Jaws) *hat an incredible, unforgettable, living unit on Northern Ireland. The Sandwich Approach to Field Trips +ast forward, *hen I first began homeschooling, I remember a homeschool mother telling me how wonderful it was to go on field trip after field trip, seeing sight after sight. I grimaced. *hy- .adn't I loved my Irish experience- *hy the grimace- (hen I began to remember my fresh$out$of$college, public school teaching days when I piloted a hands$on science program that taught children strictly through experimentation/with no lectures. *hat I thought I would love, I hated, until I realized what the program was lac#ing . . . wrap$up or summary. (he science program was very different from my Irish experience. "re$Ireland, I read about the country extensively, and then I had plenty of wrap$up through journaling and spea#ing engagements post$Ireland. (ogether, Ireland and the science program laid the groundwor# for my approach to homeschool field trips within a unit, the sandwich approach. If one slice of bread is the pre$field trip research and the other slice of bread is the post$field trip summary, then the field trip experience is the meat. 0un#er .ill was where I instituted my sandwich approach. 1ur family went on an American history tour for three wee#s in the early 2334s, and our van was an#le deep in library boo#s and National Geographic magazines. I had researched what we would see at the top of 0un#er .ill, but before we could get out of the van to experience the fabulous diorama, I wanted to ma#e sure the #ids #new what breastwor# the colonists built, how ol. 5ohn %tar# was defending the beach from being flan#ed by the 0ritish, how many assaults the 6edcoats made, how Abigail Adams watched the battle from a rooftop with son 5ohn, and how 7r. 5oseph *arren died that day. As I explained and read, the van began to fog up. 5ason, my oldest, wrote, 8.elp)9 in the fogged up window. 1#ay . . . I may have over done the research slice of bread) Preparation ields Appreciation

1nce atop the hill, my older #ids were on their own, but I #ept my :$year$old close to me reviewing the diorama. A lady approached me and explained that her daughter had a 0un#er .ill paper due tomorrow and would I please tal# to her daughter li#e I was tal#ing to my son- At that moment my oldest appeared and informed the lady

that we were a homeschooling family and I was his mother and that I wrote !"#"S curriculum and had taught all my sons this information, etc. *ait . . . was this the same son who had just written 8.elp)9 on the car window- Amazingly, preparation prior to a field trip has repeatedly yielded appreciation. As we were studying .onor! hina in our homeschool, the ;ord sent an exhibition of hinese craftsmen to five American cities, and 7allas was one of those cities. 0ecause our children had done bati#s that had been miserable failures, the #ids were blown away by the bati# lady's wor# when we visited the exhibition. 7espite the language barrier, she understood their appreciation of her s#ill through their hand signs) Preparation Enriches Experience 0ecause my high school students had read The Light and the Glory by "eter Marshall, they not only appreciated his signing their boo#s on my American history tour, but they also could carry on an intelligent conversation with him at a "limoth "lantation dinner. "reparation enriched conversations with .olocaust survivors as well as with 3$22 first responders, the New <or# firemen of ;adder 2. A tone of awe and respect transferred from #ids to those revered, through thoughtful =uestions as#ed and words of appreciation spo#en. "reparation places #ids in the s#in of those they meet and allows students to express gratitude and respect that enriches not only the field trip but also the life of the giver and the life of the receiver. %o . . . don't forget the sandwich) Jessica Hulcy, co-author of KONOS Curriculum, the first curriculum written for homeschool, is an educator, author, and formerly popular national homeschool speaker prior to her near-fatal wreck in !!"# $ graduate of the University of Texas, mom to four grown sons, and %&randear' to grandchildren, Jessica lives with her hus(and )ade on acreage in *e+as# ,ecently Jessica and )ade started the ultimate online help for homeschooling moms called Homeschool Mentor# -isit www.homeschoolmentor.com and www.konos.com # opyright >42>, used with permission. All rights reserved by author. 1riginally appeared in the April >42> issue of *he Old Schoolhouse. /aga0ine, the family education magazine. 6ead the magazine free at www.(1%Magazine.com or read it on the go and download the free apps at www.(1%Apps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices.