Your All Around Town Adventure Starts Here
All Around Town was created to be flexible, simple to use, and easy to fit into real family life. Each unit gives you a place to explore, a few hands-on activities to do together, and a field trip that helps your child connect what they are learning to the world around them.
This page will help you get started, pick back up after a break, and find new ways to get more from each adventure.
Scroll down for ideas on how to take All Around Town a little further.
How to Get Started With All Around Town
1. Choose a place to explore. You can start with any of the 20 locations, so pick one that fits your schedule or that your child is excited about.
2. Read the parent page. It gives you the goals, planning tips, ways to prepare your child, and ideas for connecting what they are learning with God’s Word.
3. Work through a few short activities. Most families can spread these across two or three short sittings. The activities might include tracing, matching, stickers, drawing, or dramatic play.
4. Take the learning with you. Visit the location, work it into an errand you already have planned, or use an alternative when a trip is not practical.
5. Talk about what they saw. Use the response pages to talk or draw about what your child noticed, then add the sticker to the tracker.
See How All the Pieces Work Together
Want to see All Around Town up close? This walkthrough shows you the curriculum book, field-trip pieces, games, stickers, tracker, and adventure bag, then gives you a look at Backyard & Beyond when you’re ready for the next adventure.
About the Curriculum Book
The Curriculum Book gives you a simple plan for each adventure while leaving room to choose what fits your child and your week.
The parent page helps you know what your child will be learning, what to look for on the trip, and how to connect the topic with God’s Word. Then choose from the activities that fit your child and your week. Can't complete all the activities now? No problem- come back to some of them later to review all the fun things you learned about the location! Tracing, matching, stickers, drawing, and dramatic play help your child know more about the place and what to look for when they get there.
In the Fire Station unit, for example, your child learns about fire engines, practices the letter F, acts out a bucket brigade, and then looks for real equipment during the field trip. The response pages give them a simple way to show and talk about what they discovered.
How to Fit Field Trips Into Your Week
Field trips can be as simple as visiting places that are already part of your family’s life. The grocery store, library, post office, and bakery all count. If a location offers tours, call ahead and ask. Inviting one or two other families can also make it easier to arrange a visit.
You have three options: take an official tour, make a regular visit while you are already there, or use the at-home alternative when a trip is not possible.
Let the field trip take the place of school for the day. Very often, the field trip is the curriculum. The best conversations may happen on the drive home, over lunch, or a few days later when your child suddenly brings up something they noticed.
What Does a Week With All Around Town Look Like?
A Fire Station adventure might unfold over two or three short sittings plus the field trip. One day, your child learns about the history of fire engines and matches the activity stickers. Another day, they trace the letter F, practice sequencing, or act out a bucket brigade.
On field trip day, tuck the Fire Station page into the adventure bag and look together for the ladder, siren, hoses, lights, storage sections, and traffic cones. Back at home, your child can draw what they learned, recreate the visit with the sticker book, and add the Fire Station sticker to the tracker.
Picking Back Up After a Break
All Around Town is flexible enough to pick back up whenever you’re ready. You can stretch one adventure across several weeks, skip activities that do not fit your child right now, or choose the next location based on what works for your family. There is no rigid order you have to follow.
If the field trip is the part that made it hard to keep going, simplify it. Visit the location during an errand you already planned, use the alternative included with the unit, or choose a different adventure for now. You don't need to catch up before you keep going. Keep exploring at a pace that works for your family.
The Sticker Book Shows You What Stuck
Young children often show what they remember by playing it back. After a field trip, let your child use the reusable sticker book to recreate parts of what they saw and tell you what is happening in the scene.
Listen to what they include, what they leave out, and the words they use as they play. They are retelling the experience, practicing vocabulary, and showing you which parts of the trip made the biggest impression.
Those Scribbles Are Building Writing Skills
Free coloring gives young children practice controlling the small movements they will eventually use for writing. Let your child experiment with colors, strokes, and shapes without worrying about staying perfectly inside the lines. What looks like scribbling is important fine motor practice.
The coloring book also works well for quiet afternoons, car rides, or younger siblings who want to join the adventure. Additional copies are available if you want each child to have their own.
More Than Matching
The matching game can grow with your child. Start with just a few pairs while they learn how the game works, then add more as they get better at the game.
You can also pull out the pair connected to the place you are studying and add new pairs as you complete each adventure. By the end of the year, the game has grown right alongside what your child has explored.
The Sticker Tracker May Be Their Favorite Part
Use the tracker as a celebration of what your child has explored. After each field trip or at-home alternative, let them add the matching sticker and keep the map somewhere they can watch their town fill in.
There are 20 places to explore and no dates to keep up with. The map still shows everything your child has explored, even when a week or two passes between stickers. And if the sticker goes on crooked, it still counts.
Want to Take All Around Town a Little Further?
Your child will naturally show more interest in certain places, jobs, and activities. When that happens, follow their curiosity. You can extend All Around Town without adding another formal lesson.
Take dramatic play into real life.
After the Grocery Store unit, let your child choose a meal, help make the shopping list, find the ingredients in the store, and help prepare dinner. They are using the same ideas they just learned while planning, sorting, counting, measuring, and helping with a real family task.
Invite another family to join you.
Ask one or two homeschool friends to come on a field trip. A small group may make it easier to arrange a tour, and many local businesses are happy to show children what happens behind the scenes when you call ahead and ask.
Let siblings join the adventure.
Older siblings may enjoy the field trips or dramatic play, while younger siblings can color beside everyone else. If they want their own copy, the coloring book is available separately.
Follow their questions.
If your child wants to know how the fire truck ladder works, where grocery-store food comes from, or what happens behind the counter at the post office, find out together. Their questions are an easy way to decide what to explore next.
Keep talking after the field trip.
Ask what surprised them, answer questions that came up during the visit, or look up something you did not get to ask about while you were there. Some connections happen later, once your child has had time to think about what they saw.
Use later errands for retelling.
The next time you walk into the grocery store, library, bank, or post office, ask your child to tell you how the place works. See what they remember and what they notice this time that they missed before.
Bring the experience back to books.
Choose a library book about a place you visited and let your child look for familiar tools, jobs, signs, and words. Now the pictures and ideas in the book connect to something they have experienced for themselves.
The Next Adventure Is in Your Own Backyard
Backyard & Beyond takes the same hands-on, field-trip-centered learning your child already knows and moves it into the natural world. They’ll explore parks, orchards, waterfalls, and the world right outside your door while the activities get “just a little bit harder as they grow.”
The familiar pieces are still there, including the curriculum book, matching game, reusable stickers, tracker, coloring book, and adventure bag. This time, they’ll also have a magnifying glass ready for closer inspection. Your child already knows how to learn this way, so the next step feels like a new adventure instead of a whole new system.
“It has become the start of our school day and often the end as well. There is so much to choose from, incorporates different styles of learning, and is visually appealing. I also like how you can start in any season of the year.”
— Nancy W.