Thread: Weekly Poll: Do you try to make your family vacations educational?

When our boys were in the elementary years, I'll admit that I felt the need to schedule at least SOME educational tours or activities when we were vacationing. Now that they are in their teen years, we have plenty of vacations where we just "chill" (although, having a learning-all-the-time mentality, there are definitely still opportunities for growth in our downtime!)

What about you...what do you think about when you plan your family's vacation destinations??

No multiple choice poll this time?

In answer, I've never much worried about making vacations educational in the past...I figured that school was for education and vacation was for relaxation, but now that I'm homeschooling, all aspects of life have become relevant to education and we are planning some trips with a lot of historical educational value this summer.

Originally Posted by schu00

No multiple choice poll this time?

In answer, I've never much worried about making vacations educational in the past...I figured that school was for education and vacation was for relaxation, but now that I'm homeschooling, all aspects of life have become relevant to education and we are planning some trips with a lot of historical educational value this summer.

You were just too quick, Shoe!! Still trying to publish when you piped in!!!

Originally Posted by Topsy

You were just too quick, Shoe!! Still trying to publish when you piped in!!!

Well, I've got to be quick, to get those 700 posts that I need to catch up to Nathalie this week ...just kidding-you called it right when you named her "untouchable".

I chose option 3 as the closest, but in reality learning always occurs on every vacation (even before we had Kiddo) because DH and I are big ole geeks and take educational tours and visit historical sites and talk to park rangers and consult nature guides etc. anyway.

We don't set out to make any trip educational but it's often hard not to. We have the advantage of being stationed in great places all over the world and we would be terrible world citizens to just ignore what's at or feet. When we lived in Spain we learned so much about the Spanish culture, the Moorish influence. We went to Tangier for a day and learned (though not much, bad tour) a bit about the history of the area. We stopped for a few nights in Italy and took in Pisa and Florence, the Tower and David. (Upon seeing David, my DD mentioned that he had a butt crack. You never see that in pictures. Never thought to look for that.) Living in Germany we have seen some wonderful castles and have learned some about them. My DH and the kids went to the Maginot Line and saw history firsthand. We went to Paris and had the pleasure of seeing Venus and Mona at the Louvre (Mona's disappointing). And plenty of other sights that we just learn about in books. My kids are great travelers and really enjoy learning about things. they have so many questions that we refuse to leave unanswered. They were, unfortunately, too young to remember Guam and Australia. I guess we'll have to go back!

Even when we are in the states we end up learning a lot. Even a week at Disney can lead to learning. But we don't usually set out to learn anything specific. That may change when we live there again and as we continue the homeschool journey.

I never plan our vacations based on the educational value of them....but I always look for the educational value in them for our portfolios!

I put the third choice, but my kids are pretty young still (the oldest of 4 kids is Kindergarten age in the fall). Plus, pretty much all of our vacations have been cross-country trips to visit our extended family 2,000 miles away (Dayton, OH to Seattle, WA). The next trip planned is at Christmas when we are going to drive(!) out for the holiday and my brother's wedding. I am going to plan lessons as part of the trip, plus continue with some regular school activities to keep everyone busy in the car. Unfortunately, I can only plan so much geography type lessons specific to the states we are passing through since we aren't totally sure of the route we can take (depends on the weather). I am hopeful that one day we'll take a vacation that doesn't involve going to see family. I'm already plotting trips to historical places, and can't wait until we can take the kids to D.C., Boston and such.

I don't try to make them educational but learning seems to happen anyway.

Right now our "vacations" pretty much entail visiting relatives we left when we moved to FL from MI, but when we are up there we usually always go to the zoo, and this last time we visited their Science Center also. When my kids get a little older (they are only 4 and 7) I hope to drive when we go north and take detours to interesting and hopefully educational places.