Education at Disney

[Octoberbabiesrus]

We are a homeschool family and just wondering what other homeschool or even non HS families have done with the ideas of educational aspect of disney. Care to share?

 

[PoohGal05]

I believe it's called the Affection Section at Animal Kingdom. You have to take the train to get to it. There is section where you might be able to witness them doing surgery on animals. Festival of the Lion King is actually where I found out that giraffes make a low bleating sound like a sheep.

I do believe there with all of the countries represented, there would be plenty to see, do, and experience at Epcot. I think there are also tours you can go on how food is grown, although I believe there is an extra cost.

 

[princessmom29]

We spend a lot of time just talking to DD5 about what we see and do. The countries in WS are a great opportunity to talk about different cultures, for example. I have to say as a teacher though that unless you are really stringent about a lesson plan and are taking younger children i just don't see how disney can be justified as a school day. To do a true lesson in the park you won't be riding very many rides. I have seen lessons on money managment, cultural diversity, math lessons on estimating wait times for rides, but you would actually spend most of your day doing schoolwork rather than riding anythingif you are actually doing the lessons justice. Just my cents, and you can take it for what you want, but to me Disney is a vacation. That doesn't mead you cannot learn something, but it I just don't think that it does anyone any favors to try to have school there. This is basically what i tell parents who try to justify disney as an educational trip. It is a vacation. Go, have fun, and come back and do your makeup work(as long as you have the parent notes to cover it), but you are going to do the makeup.

 

[livndisney]

Disney hosts Homeschool days twice a year in September and January. There is also a woman here on the Dis who has written Disney lesson plans, I think she posts on the Homeschool chat thread. As a educator and now as a homeschool family, I can tell you the opportunities are endless. So far we have done lessons on:
Christmas around the World
Art and structure around the World
History of how Disney came to be
Animals, land and sea

The Flower and Garden show was a great resource (also used by the local public schools) on growing, etc.

F & W has a great area all about Pears (pearville USA) that my DD LOVES.

We have gone behind the scenes with the Gorillas at AK. The affection section is very hands on. And sometimes you can watch them do actual procedures on animals in a glassed in area. We also spent Earth Day at AK, they had info tables set up and my DD learned about saving animals in the rain forest and how to conserve electricity and made a "toad abode" to bring home.

 

[allyphoe]

IMHO, Disney is no more (nor less) educational than any other random location. There are plenty of jumping-off spots for discussion of anything you and/or the kids happen to be interested in, but too little depth to have much lasting value.

When we were at Epcot, DD6 and I had a lot of discussion about the different types of lighting - the fiber optics in the ground and one side of Innoventions vs. reflective chips in the floor covering inside Innoventions vs. the neon-look light around Spaceship Earth vs. traditional incandescent lighting vs. fluorescents. She had very little interest in how anything else worked, but we talked about almost every light we saw there. If we were homeschoolers, we'd probably be doing some hands-on work with different types of lights now that we're home. But to try and do anything more-meaningful than observation and general discussion while at WDW would have been extremely difficult.

(I suspect that, given DD's temperament and mine, unschooling / child led learning would be the most-successful form of HS for our household. If your HS plan involves a more-structured curriculum, and you want to give over a chunk of vacation time to formal schooling, you could probably tie just about any subject in to Disney somehow.)

 

[jettyspagetti]

We homeschool and will be going to WDW three weeks after we start "school" this year. We have sent away for travel info from all the countries represented at EPCOT's world showcase and will spend time on all of them- about a week each immersing ourselves in learning everything we can. We will only have time for about three before we go and I am hoping my son will be spurred on to learn more after meeting the CM's there.
Discovery.com has a page where you can make your own word sesarches so we will use that as well as make posters and books to go along with what we learn.

 

[MickeyMouse'sBFF]

Im pretty sure there is a homeschool thrad on here somewhere. Maybe scan it a little and see what they write about for ideas.

 

[Eeyore's Wife]

I am a former high school teacher and current homeschooling mother. We do not "do school" at Disney. One of the great things about homeschool is that we keep our own schedule. My son started school two weeks ago so that he could finish 45 full days of school before we head to Disney September 26.

This vacation will be the break between first and second quarter. He is in mid-school and we love being able to adjust the school year to fit vacations which allow us a much smaller price tag and other perks (such as Food and Wine Festival).

I liked to reference Disney in problems we use at home. For example. If the sled for Rocking Roller Coaster with a mass of 2 tons, when fully loaded with guests, reaches the speed of 60 miles per hour in 200 feet, what is the force applied to the sled at launch?

(Note: I just made that up on the fly, and don't know if that is the actual speed, mass, or distance....but I usually do find actual numbers for problems we calculate, as that makes it a lot of extra fun.)

For young children, a trip to Disney, especially Epcot or Animal Kingdom, could very easily be justified as a field trip. It could even be a field trip for an older student with proper planning....such as a behind the seeds tour in combination with a study/report on innovative agricultural techniques.

My elementary aged son got a great lecture on the bernoulli principle (which explains lift and how planes can fly) when we flew to Disney once. The adult woman in front of us told us she learned more listening to us on the trip than she learned in all of high school Physics. Learning is a life long adventure, and as any kind of parent, home school or any other learning choice, needs to be willing to make the most of "teachable moments."