Geocaching for homeschoolers

Looking for ways to keep your kids engaged in your back to school plans? Well, you’re in luck! Geocaching is a great way to give kids hands-on experience with science, writing, physical education, reading comprehension, and even fine motor skills.

Here are some fun and unique ways you can get back to school geocaching style. Let’s get ready to make mistakes, get messy, and go geocaching!

Geocaching is a great tool for both fun and learning. Here’s some ideas for how geocaching can be used as a tool to teach kids:

  1. Geometry. Geography is a given, but geocaching is also great at teaching geometry. Satellites use trilateration as a way to find GPS locations, and you can use these as a way to get kids thinking practically about lines and angles. Check out this article on the science of how satellites work as a good place to start!
  1. Writing. When you go caching, have your kids write their own logs. You can have them include the story of how they found the cache, what they liked most about it, or anything else you’d like to focus on. And they can be as long as you’d like them to be—as long as it’s under 4000 characters, that is!
  1. Reading Comprehension. Cache descriptions often contain useful hints about cache placement, or sometimes just tell the story of why a cache was hidden in a certain location. Either way, have your kids read the whole cache description before finding the cache. They can even point out words they don’t know that can be added to their vocabulary!
  1. Physical Education. Running laps? Boring! Searching for a geocache? Super fun! Choose caches along trails, Multi-caches, or caches with a high Terrain rating for the best gym class ever!
  1. Fine Motor Skills. For the younger kids out there, finding, screwing the cap off a cache, and even writing their initials (if they can) is a great way to work their small muscles and practice dexterity. 

Looking for more learning? Check out this article on how to get back to school with geocaching, or head over to our GeocachingEdu page where parents, teachers, and educators can find handy resources on incorporating geocaching in the classroom. 

Sarah is a French-speaking Marketing Coordinator at Geocaching HQ. She likes cats and musicals, but only separately. In her spare time you can find her knitting, snuggling her cat, and waiting impatiently for the next season of Cosmos.