Missing School

[logan1_2000]

We're pulling DS out of school next week for the Wonder. 3rd time for him to miss school for a DCL cruise, all before his 9th birthday. In my next life I'm coming back as my son...

We are very fortunate to have a straight A student who gets top marks in his public elementary school's Challenge Program as well, so that each time, when we have approached his teacher in advance to let her know he would be missing school and did she have an advance copy of assignments or at least have suggestions of the type of material or reading we could cover on our own, we have been told to not worry and have a good time, the missed school would not affect him one bit because he is such a good student.

DW and I decided DS won't get off quite that easy. Each night during school he has short creative writing assignements--a suggested topic or theme ("write about a place you have been" or "write about a favorite food", that type of thing). So he will write something about each of his days and bring that "report" back to class. I went to the DIS Board for Disney for Kids, and there is a link to Travel pages for kids that are formatted with Disney graphics, are wide ruled appropriate for younger children, and some are even fill in the blank (Who went? My favorite thing about today was. There were appropirate pages for DCL day entries, and travel-themed pages (illustration of a station wagon and suit cases and an interstate highway sign) and some tropical looking pages with beach scenes and palm trees. I printed up an assortment, in color, and then extras so if he goofs he has plenty more and wont have to fret. 10 minutes of creativity a night. add that to room service chocolate chip cookies and mickey ice cream bars and thats a decent evening. hmmm. just re-read the last couple lines and realized I left myself open for a few jabs about 10 minutes of creativity. You could ask DW what she thinks of her ol' creative DH but she'd have to confess she must have fallen asleep and really couldn't tell you.

anyway--since school is in session and many of us are pulling the kids out, thought I'd pass along our use of the formatted pages. the amount of time you spend "creatively" is up to you...and up to how long the kids will stay in the Club/Lab...

 

[mickeyfanmom]

Thanks for the info- I will check that out!

My son is also a straight A student in fourth grade (in GA too) but his teachers are giving us some of his work in advance and also said that he will have much more when he gets back!

It's fine because I am confident that it won't affect his grades and all of his teachers are being really great about him going- but I just wanted you to let your son know that he is lucky indeed!

 

[logan1_2000]

Are you driving down from Cumming or flying from ATL to MCO? Curious is all, we always drive to Port Canaveral, have often spent the night near Jacksonville in between if we got a late start out of ATL and then just had about a two hour straight shot on I-95 left in the morning. We are not only lucky because of DS but also because we do not have to deal with the airlines or transfers or any of the other "moving parts" of the process that unfortunately sometimes trip up others.

Your post says this will be our first DCL cruise. Enjoy it--we thought our first cruise on Royal Caribbean had been nice, we knew it wasn't a great ship, but still nice; then we went on DCL and realized the RCCL cruise sucked and how awesome DCL was--with all our high expectations DCL still surpassed them all!

 

[mickeyfanmom]

We are driving to the port the day before and staying the night. We got one of the inclusive parking places and will just take the shuttle.

It is our first cruise- I had done the "big red boat" thing in the past and had also been at a company weekend function on a cruise ship but never a whole trip before- we are excited!

Thanks for your kind words and enjoy your "Wonderful" trip!

 

[suzannef]

hey thanks for the great post. We are also taking our girls out of school for a week in May. My girls are also straight A students but of course I still struggled with taking them out of school for so long. My 4th grade daughter will have state wide science exam too the week we get back. But..... we are going with my father in law, sister in law and her husband and kids so I really felt it was worth taking them. A good friend of mine said to think about ten years from now and would it really matter about missing a week of school or would the family memories be more important. That said, I will be checking out that website and making sure the girls do some creative writing.(in between mickey bars of course)




Thanks again
Suzanne

 

[tecdavidt]

We just took our daughter out of school for three days for the 7 Day New Year's Eve cruise on the Magic. We told the school 3 days incase we had problems getting home. It ended up we made it home fine but because of bad weather she missed only two days that entire week, Tues. the 4th and Friday because of a bad cold. The good news, since the weather was so bad she was still ahead homework wise!

Now she is not a straight A student, could be with effort but that means she would have to make the effort lol. She is the baby of 4 with a 9 yr gap between her and no. 3. When we took her out we had a meeting with the teachers, principal and her only she didn't know she was being taken out of school. She thought she was in trouble of because of lack of effort-- well, that is true too. When she opened her Christmas present and saw homework then Dad handed her an envelope with a certificate that told her about the trip.

All I told her was now she knew why we were so upset with her and her lazy attitude towards her homework. If she ever wanted to be pulled from school again she had better do all the homework the teachers provided or else kiss any trips during school year good bye. She is only in 7th grade and that would stand clear through grade 12.

She did her homework. She didn't like doing it but she did do it. Kathy

 

[tvguy]

Yeah, pulling your child out for vacation can be controversial.
Here in California it's illegal. Yep, a FELONY. They do truancy stings everyone and a while, and while most of parents arrested are basically lowlifes, it is interested to see the well heeled folks hauled off in handcuffs saying "but I only took them out for a few days for vacation".
The judges can hit you with a $10,000 fine, and 6 months in jail. but usually for first time offenders it's just a $500 fine per child.

 

[scrapcreator]

Your homework sounds like sooooo much more fun than what my dd (9) had. We had to put her on independent study for the 8 school days that she missed in Oct. or her absences would have been unexcused She had to do at least 4 hours worth of work for each day missed. She had reading, writing, math, social studies and a book report due when we returned. We got a few assignments ahead of our trip and did those at home. Then we worked on the plane going and coming, a little bit every afternoon before getting dressed for the shows and a major cram session on the Sunday we returned. Since we did the work, she still received a perfect attendance award and Principal's Honor Roll (1 B). Dh says never again during the school year. Doing that amount of homework while on vacation is NOT fun!

Jeanne

 

[Az Pirates]

Yeah, pulling your child out for vacation can be controversial.
Here in California it's illegal. Yep, a FELONY. They do truancy stings everyone and a while, and while most of parents arrested are basically lowlifes, it is interested to see the well heeled folks hauled off in handcuffs saying "but I only took them out for a few days for vacation".
The judges can hit you with a $10,000 fine, and 6 months in jail. but usually for first time offenders it's just a $500 fine per child.

Seems to me communication is key here.
When we lived in CA. (just a couple of years ago) you could put the kids on independant study if they were going to miss a few days.
That kept the school happy as they did not lose funding for the days missed and I'm sure would protect parents from any truancy stings as the kids would not show up as truant!

 

[American Scrapper]

logan1 2000, my DS sounds like yours. We too are blessed with a child who does pretty good in school, and I have never been that concerned with him missing a week and falling behind. We will be pulling him out, for the third time, in October and he will to be 9. We used the DIS pages on our last cruise. He was giving us a hard time about doing them, but we insisted anyways. When he was done, he brought it to school to share with his class and was very proud of it. When will the learn that us parents are always right!?!

Kathy

 

[PiperG]

I went to the DIS Board for Disney for Kids, and there is a link to Travel pages for kids that are formatted with Disney graphics, are wide ruled appropriate for younger children, and some are even fill in the blank (Who went? My favorite thing about today was. There were appropirate pages for DCL day entries, and travel-themed pages (illustration of a station wagon and suit cases and an interstate highway sign) and some tropical looking pages with beach scenes and palm trees. I printed up an assortment, in color, and then extras so if he goofs he has plenty more and wont have to fret.

Would you mind posting this link? I am having trouble finding it on the boards.

Thanks!

 

[missmulan]

i'm pretty lucky to be on the year round school schedule....three months on, then one month off. so much easier to plan for vacations. we go during the off-peak season....the same eastern cruise would have cost me $3,000 extra if it was during the summer...

i love the year-round schedule. our school actually have the option of going back to traditional but it was out-voted by an overwhelming majority of parents.

 

[logan1_2000]

I found it! Here it is if anybody else wants to check it out:

http://www.disneydollarless.com/journal/journal.shtml

Hope this link to the printable kids pages works--I am not always the best at posting links.

Yesterday DS comes home and tells us that one of his friends in his class mentioned missing school next week to go on a Disney cruise. We called the home last night to verify/check the story out, but no answer, left a message. Would be a huge bonus for DS to walk on the ship knowing some friends his own age.