Have you taught your homeschooler the definition of the word festival? Has your homeschooler been to a festival yet? According to Wikipedia, “A #festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday.

Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern.”

What a great field trip for your homeschooler! What an excellent way to guide your homeschooler in learning more about a culture and diversity by attending the event.

A good site for finding festivals in the United States and Canada is called Festival.net. You can search by state and month. It appears to list extensive data, updated and expanded daily on over 26,000+ events. It includes craft shows, music festivals, craft fairs, home & garden shows, art and craft shows, fine art shows, street festivals and more. It is Ideal for the professional or prospective artist, crafts person, musician, performer, band, agent, production or service provider, researcher, vendor or festival goer.

Assign your homeschooler to write a short paper after they have gone to the festival. Below is a sample field trip report format:

• Abstract: A short statement which gives a quick overview of the rest of the report.
• Introduction: The introduction will introduce the reader to important concepts for the report.  A review of pertinent literature is a must, and a good review will be a good source of points
• Materials and Methods: Be sure to also include a discussion of what was observed, and feel free to include a map and photos. Do not forget to pick up the free literature.
• Results: When presenting the data set as a graph, be sure to include such important features such as units on your axes, and a clear, easily understood legend.

Have fun attending the festival with your homeschooler and discussing what was best liked and disliked on the drive back home! Encourage your homeschooler to be creative!