Field Trips

While the in-school Nysmith curriculum is rich in experiential projects, field trips provide first-hand experiences that cannot be duplicated anywhere else. The field trips are carefully and closely tied to the topics that the students are currently studying.

The schedule for field trips varies from year to year. The information below will give you a taste of the day and overnight trips that students have attended in the recent past.

Day trips are part of the formal curriculum and are covered by tuition costs; overnight trips are optional and are paid for by parents.

Overnight trips include:

  • Second-grade trip to Williamsburg and Jamestown, coordinated with their study of Colonial America.
  • Third-grade trip to Philadelphia, related to their study of the Continental Congress and the Founding Fathers.
  • Fourth-grade trip to Gettysburg and Antietam to learn additional lessons about the Civil War.
  • Fifth-grade trip to New York City to gain new insights about American immigration in the early 1900s.
  • Sixth-grade trip to Sandy Hill Camp for teambuilding activities.
  • Seventh-grade trip to the Chesapeake Bay Conservatory with tie-ins to science and ecology.
  • Eighth-grade trip to New York City to explore performing arts and cultural center activities.

Day trips include:

  • Arlington Planetarium
  • Bull Run Native Lands
  • EC Lawrence Park
  • Great Country Farms
  • Gum Spring Library
  • Heritage Farm Museum
  • Hidden Pond
  • Kings Dominion Physics Day
  • Krops Crops
  • Luray Caverns
  • Mount Vernon C&O Canal
  • National Air & Space Museum /Udvar-Hazy Center
  • National Aquarium
  • National Archives
  • National Building Museum
  • National Museum of American History
  • National Museum of the American Indian
  • National Portrait Gallery
  • National Zoo
  • Potomac Overlook Park
  • State Arboretum of VA
  • WWII Memorial