one sentence- Why is Disney Educational???

[branv]

The problem with using the "family emergency" excuse is that the kids are going to come back and spill every detail to the BFF's. Then the kids will tell their parents, their parents will tell other parents....you see where I am going with this. It will get back to the powers that be in the school and you will be asked to explain yourself.

Hmmm...yes, I suppose in this instance just answering, "What can I say, my kid's a rotten stinking liar" wouldn't be the best response either.

 

[Maddle]

Anyplace I ever took my boys, or my nieces and nephews, I never regretted. My sister and I both feel that the experiences the kids have had made them more open confident people - something my siblings and I had to seek out ourselves, and believe me, we were challenged when we reached adulthood.

Let's face it - once you step outside of the cocoon of home/neighborhood/routine and out into the world, it's all educational and it's all good. But wiith school testing the buggaboo that it is, what school system will take that chance that you are really just bumming around with your kids.

That's the problem with zero tolerance policies....the stories we could all tell about zero tolerance.

Oh - and the "STEM track" is the pretty much the same as my previously posted "Graduate Level Studies," so you just have to bring it down to elementary level.

Maddle

 

[Adi12982]

http://www.themouseforless.com/downloads/kids/SchoolExcuse/SE1.shtml

This should help - you may even want to attach it to the form, that way they can read all abut it if they'd like

 

[T. Lynn]

Here are just a few ideas. Not sure if I got this from someone on the DIS boards.,.

Some things he will learn about:

* Different cultures of the world, including architecture, language, and dress, by visiting the different countries in the Epcot World Showcase (Japan, China, Germany, Mexico, Norway, Canada, France, etc,) She will have the chance to explore the exhibits for each country and speak with natives from each country who work as cast members.

* American history by viewing the Hall of Presidents presentation in the Magic Kingdom and the American Adventure show in Epcot.

* Nature and conservation at Animal Kingdom.

* Science by exploring the Mission: Space ride in Epcot where she will have a chance to see and feel what it would be like to travel by rocket to Mars and by experiencing the Universe of Energy exhibit which teaches about fossil fuels, energy, and conservation.

* Economics by managing her own spending money and making budget decisions on how to spend her money.

* Map reading by navigating in and to the different theme parks & resorts, sociological aspects of crowds including patterns and behavior, physics of the different rides, breakthroughs in technology at the Innoventions computer lab in Epcot, art and animation and the history of film, and mathematics.

 

[mickey'sbud]

Thankfully, in our area, parents are still parents, and schools don't own our kids.

You are lucky!!!

 

[Suz D]

We took our 7th grader out for 7 days in December to go to WDW and on the Disney cruise. We talked to her teachers at PT conference in early October and they were all fine with it (we're new to the area so we weren't sure whether they would be or not as it does seem like there is a strict attendance policy in the state). The fun part of the story is that there was a snow day on the day before we left so she ended up missing a math test that she would have taken that day. Her math teacher wrote a test just for her and e-mailed it to me. It had questions like...If space mountain travels x MPH how far will it travel in 50 minutes? A pirate ship on Peter Pan's flight takes 2.75 minutes to go through the ride. If three people fit on one pirate ship, estimate how many people can go through on that one ship in one hour. What is your favorite ride at WDW? Tell me two math facts about that ride using decimals.

Now that's what I call going above and beyond the call of duty! What a great teacher she is (she also admitted that she was incredibly jealous that we were going and she had to stay home).

The first time we took Katie out of school for WDW, she kept a journal, she colored in all of the World Showcase countries on a world map, and she did a little exercise where we tallied all of the hair colors in different countries and calculated percentages. We also discussed reasons why most of the employees in China, Japan, and Mexico had dark hair and most of the ones in Norway had blond hair. Very fun for a first grader.

Good luck with taking your kids out of school. We'd like to go again for the buy 4 get 3 in March, but don't think it would fly to take her out another 5 days in March. School and work just get in the way of Disney IMHO.