Pulling 7 year old out of school. What do you do?

[Mama Who]

It has already been a very rough year for my family we lost my mother in law in December, I have major surgery in March and my son will have surgery in June.

Yeah, had a similar year. We're going for a week in May as family therapy and if we had a school to deal with and they didn't like it I'd tell them to pound sand. Sometimes there are things more important than a week of book learning.

 

[Colleen27]

PE, Music and art are learning, but I am far more concerned with the 3 R's. If my kid misses out on elementary pe, music or art for 4 days, there really isn't any "make up" for those courses. My kids are involved in Band and sporting activities outside of what is required in school so I think they are more than adequately covered in those areas.

And in most public school districts that I'm familiar with, those classes are once or twice a week rather than every day. So a missed week of school is only a missed 45min of each of the non-core courses.

 

[mickey50]

I pulled my 7yoa out of 2nd grade in May of 2010. It was the best decision we could have made. We surprised him with the trip, for his 8th birthday. We saved money and time. They are only little once!!! He made up all of his work when he returned to school and still made A's. I agree with your decision and I encourage you to proceed with your plans.

Have a MAGICAL TIME!!!

 

[maddiesmom0116]

I am sorry to disagree with some here, but I still say that if my DD could miss a week of school and not have ot do anything to catch up I owuld question why that was the case. I am not asying no one should be able to catch up from missing a week, but that there should be something that needs to be done to catch up. My students in high school typically need at least 2 afterschool sessions to catch up on the concepts missed, and that is just in my subject. They also have to do this for the other 4 classes they take. A week missed is big chunk of material to recoup.

My DD has no issue with missing a week and having nothing to catch up on and I am not left wondering why. She is the same age as the OP's child and we take her out every year at close to the same time. If your child is just advanced because you do spend time teaching them at home and communicate well with their teachers, your child will be ahead and missing a week at this age will not cause academic issues. My 1st grader reads at a "s" level which is where middle of the year 2nd graders usually are, while the requirement is a level "e" for our state at this point. The other kids are still just adding / subtracting, while she has mastered that and is multiplying and starting long division soon. I have no reason to question why she doesn't get behind missing a week. I know why, she is simply ahead and it is not the schools fault. I feel you are implying something is lacking in a school if they can miss a week without falling behind like stated by you above.

OP- If you feel they will not not suffer academically then don't feel bad. I would suggest reviewing with them the 1st grade concepts over the summer to keep them fresh in their mind. A lot of the first month is previous year review because so much is lost at that age over the summer.

 

[princessmom29]

My DD has no issue with missing a week and having nothing to catch up on and I am not left wondering why. She is the same age as the OP's child and we take her out every year at close to the same time. If your child is just advanced because you do spend time teaching them at home and communicate well with their teachers, your child will be ahead and missing a week at this age will not cause academic issues. My 1st grader reads at a "s" level which is where middle of the year 2nd graders usually are, while the requirement is a level "e" for our state at this point. The other kids are still just adding / subtracting, while she has mastered that and is multiplying and starting long division soon. I have no reason to question why she doesn't get behind missing a week. I know why, she is simply ahead and it is not the schools fault. I feel you are implying something is lacking in a school if they can miss a week without falling behind like stated by you above.

OP- If you feel they will not not suffer academically then don't feel bad. I would suggest reviewing with them the 1st grade concepts over the summer to keep them fresh in their mind. A lot of the first month is previous year review because so much is lost at that age over the summer.

My Dd is on about the same reading level I think. We do a number system rather than letters and she tests at a 2.5, whicsh is halfway through second grade. Her class is still doing simple addition ans subtraction, and she can do larger numbers with carryover. No, i don't spend a lot time teaching her at home to push her ahead because I don't fell it is necessary or healthy to push her too far ahead of her peers. We do other enrichment activities instead, like dance classes. The reading and math is not where most of our catch up time is spent. We do a lot more with science, history, and grammar. There are lessons on a new topic each week and all of these subjects are covered every day so we would miss and emtire unit in each for a week out. They have covered basic punctuation and are on the last 2 parts of speech, adverbs and prepositions. Teaching that at home does take some time when you couple it with perhaps a science lesson on carnivores, herbivores, and omnivors, food chains and food webs which was this weeks science, and A history lesson on the completion of the transcontinential raliroad and what the meant for communication in the US. All of which require that she read the informaiton and complete the accompanying work as well as take the comprehension test. Does your DD not have to make up stuff like this at all? We are required to cover the missing information. This is what i mean when I say a week of school is a lot missed. It is not just the 3R's but everything else she misses.

 

[Colleen27]

My Dd is on about the same reading level I think. WE do a number system rather than letters and she tests at a 2.5, whicsh is halfway through second grade. Her class is still doing simple addition ans subtraction, and she can do larger nu8mbers with carryover. No, i don't spend a lot time teaching her at home to push her ahewad because i don't fell iti s necessary or healthy to push her too far ahead of her peers. We do other enrichment activities instead, like dance classes. The reading and math is not where most of our catch up time is spent. We do a lot more with science, history, and grammar. There are lessone on a new topic each week nad all of these subjects are covered every day so we would miss and emtire unit in each for a week out. They have covered basic punctuation and are on the last 2 parts of speech, adverbs and prepositions. Teaching that at home does take some time when you couple it with perhaps a science lesson on carnivores, herbivores, and omnivors, food chains and food webs which was this weeks science, and A history lesson on the completion of the transcontinential raliroad and what the meant for communication in the US. All of which require that she read the informaiton and complete the accompanying work as well as take the comprehension test. Does your DD not have to make up stuff like this at all? We are required to cover the missing information. This is what i mean when I say a week of school is a lot missed. It is not just the 3R's but everything else she misses.

Our classes don't move through material that quickly at the elementary level. Science units are 4 weeks long and explore a single topic in depth, and the kids get the text/workbook at the start of the unit so we can go over what is missed at home without any real trouble. Social studies has an annual "theme"; 4th grade is state history and the teacher's web site shows what time period and topics they're studying each week.

Spelling is weekly units but the assignments are repetitive - looking up definitions on Monday, using words in sentences on Tuesday, etc. - and the rest of language arts isn't organized into clear-cut units where a topic is only covered for one week. It "stacks", so something is introduced one week to get a feel of where the class is starting on the concept, covered in more depth the next, and remains in the unit as review for another week or two as needed. And math is handled about the same as language arts.

For a kid who catches on quickly, a missed week still leaves enough time working with each concept that catching up at home is more about finishing missed assignments than learning new material. And our school's web site makes keeping tabs on what is being missed really simple, because spelling lists and Spanish vocab lists and other routine parts of the workload are posted each week, along with brief notes about what is being covered in other subjects.

 

[jimanda44]

GO without guilt. We have taken our 4 kids out at the exact same time for the last 3 yrs. and they all pull it off without any problems. Our oldest manages her college schedule, son a high school load(which amazes us bc he's not the best student:} ), and last two are in elementary school. They know if they don't maintain grades we can't go the following year. So everyone seems to do their best. Go and have fun and be prepared to help when you get back. ENJOY your vacation!!!!!

 

[princessmom29]

Our classes don't move through material that quickly at the elementary level. Science units are 4 weeks long and explore a single topic in depth, and the kids get the text/workbook at the start of the unit so we can go over what is missed at home without any real trouble. Social studies has an annual "theme"; 4th grade is state history and the teacher's web site shows what time period and topics they're studying each week.

Spelling is weekly units but the assignments are repetitive - looking up definitions on Monday, using words in sentences on Tuesday, etc. - and the rest of language arts isn't organized into clear-cut units where a topic is only covered for one week. It "stacks", so something is introduced one week to get a feel of where the class is starting on the concept, covered in more depth the next, and remains in the unit as review for another week or two as needed. And math is handled about the same as language arts.

For a kid who catches on quickly, a missed week still leaves enough time working with each concept that catching up at home is more about finishing missed assignments than learning new material. And our school's web site makes keeping tabs on what is being missed really simple, because spelling lists and Spanish vocab lists and other routine parts of the workload are posted each week, along with brief notes about what is being covered in other subjects.

If units were 4 weeks long, I could see it not being a problem to get caught up becuae you would not need to teach a whole set of new material. DD's school does things a little differently. They will cover many of the same topics next year, but in greater depth. The knowledge base bulids as thier critical thinking skills advance, so they look at the same topic in a new way.

 

[Colleen27]

If units were 4 weeks long, I could see it not being a problem to get caught up becuae you would not need to teach a whole set of new material. DD's school does things a little differently. They will cover many of the same topics next year, but in greater depth. The knowledge base bulids as thier critical thinking skills advance, so they look at the same topic in a new way.

Yeah, our approach is different and easier to make up. They use a cyclical approach, where each year of social studies and science follow a loose "theme" (US history, world history, state history: natural science, physical science, etc) and the "themes" are recycled every few years to go more in depth on each topic within that theme.

So for example, DD just finished up a project that was combined social studies and science - building a model of a specific lighthouse in our state, with a working circuit for the light. Electricity was first taught in a 2nd grade science unit with the potato battery experiment, and now in 4th they're going into more depth and building their own switched circuit. It is similar to the middle/high school approach of more narrowly focused semester or year-long courses, but adapted and applied to elementary school.

 

[diamondpixienc]

Well, my DS will be in the 3rd grade and DD will be in the 1st when we go in Sept too. And I am pulling mine out too. Their school is pretty good about these type of things. Just be honest and communicate with the teachers and it should be fine Have a magical trip!

 

[kkmcan]

We have pulled our kids out of school before when they were in 1st and 4th grade for a week, and then a couple of other times for long weekends. But we can no longer do that.

DS11 has such a hard time keeping up in class that it gets so overwhelming and we spend 2 weeks or more trying to catch him up. DD 14 can handle it and completed her work the night before we left for our 2 night disney cruise last month.

We stick to fall break, winter break, spring break and summers now.

You have to do what works best for you. Some kids have no trouble and some like my ds can't handle all the extra work and the instruction they are missing in class.

 

[pacrosby]

As far as the discussion of how much information is being missed in a week - I think we would find that taking multiple weeks to complete a unit is by far the more typical way of teaching in elementary school and often beyond. I can't even imagine only taking one week to introduce and complete a unit. I would hope it would be about a lot more than memorizing some predetermined list of important facts. How can the students ever write a report, complete an accompanying project or prepare an oral presentation? At the end of the day the best thing that will come out of that caterpillar unit will be the opportunity to strengthen those reading comprehension skills, and writing skills, and organization skills, and research skills and study skills etc. The specifics of the life cycle itself? Pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

I don't know, I'd personally be a little bit more concerned about a school that tried to stuff a whole science/social studies unit into a single week. What would be the point? So they can hurry up and move on to "something else". Seems to me they might be missing the point.

 

[princessmom29]

As far as the discussion of how much information is being missed in a week - I think we would find that taking multiple weeks to complete a unit is by far the more typical way of teaching in elementary school and often beyond. I can't even imagine only taking one week to introduce and complete a unit. I would hope it would be about a lot more than memorizing some predetermined list of important facts. How can the students ever write a report, complete an accompanying project or prepare an oral presentation? At the end of the day the best thing that will come out of that caterpillar unit will be the opportunity to strengthen those reading comprehension skills, and writing skills, and organization skills, and research skills and study skills etc. The specifics of the life cycle itself? Pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

I don't know, I'd personally be a little bit more concerned about a school that tried to stuff a whole science/social studies unit into a single week. What would be the point? So they can hurry up and move on to "something else". Seems to me they might be missing the point.

Mabye it is a termonology, but a unit and a topic are two differnt things with us. Whay we consider a unit in elementary would be equivilent ot a chapter in a high school science class. It takes one day to introduce the facts and do the vocabulary for a unit. The rest of the week is spent on experiments, discussions and deeper exploration of that topic, reading and writing about it. There would be no point in stretching that amount of information out over a month. They would be spending a whole lot of time doing pointless color cut and paste if that were the case. I don't see the point in taking and entire month studying the life cycle of a butterfly for 45 min every day. DD would be bored silly as she would have it after day one.
Several units are introuduced on the same theme. This entire month is ecology. The project will be to construct a complete biome at the end of the month. All of the units done over the course of the month will feed into this theme. There is no reason you cannot do projects and reports while still introducing new information every week, and no reason it should take a month to learn what a food web is. I cover what DD is doing this week in one day in freshman biology, and obviiously we go into much greater depth that first graders do. There is no reason to spend more than a week on this amount of information, but no, they cannot cover all of ecology effectively in one week.

 

[pacrosby]

Mabye it is a termonology, but a unit and a topic are two differnt things with us. Whay we consider a unit in elementary would be equivilent ot a chapter in a high school science class. It takes one day to introduce the facts and do the vocabulary for a unit. The rest of the week is spent on experiments, discussions and deeper exploration of that topic, reading and writing about it. There would be no point in stretching that amount of information out over a month. They would be spending a whole lot of time doing pointless color cut and paste if that were the case. I don't see the point in taking and entire month studying the life cycle of a butterfly for 45 min every day. DD would be bored silly as she would have it after day one.
Several units are introuduced on the same theme. This entire month is ecology. The project will be to construct a complete biome at the end of the month. All of the units done over the course of the month will feed into this theme. There is no reason you cannot do projects and reports while still introducing new information every week, and no reason it should take a month to learn what a food web is. I cover what DD is doing this week in one day in freshman biology, and obviiously we go into much greater depth that first graders do. There is no reason to spend more than a week on this amount of information, but no, they cannot cover all of ecology effectively in one week.

Just out of curiosity, taking that butterfly unit as an example, just how exactly would a school introduce a new topic, have kids write a report, do a project, hatch butterflies etc. within one weeks time? Seems like an impossible task to me. How could they possibly do any topic justice in 4 hours? I'm not suggesting that they should do caterpillars and caterpillars alone for a number of weeks as of course that'd be overkill. However studying those caterpillars in combination with a number of other insects over the course of that month? That makes perfect sense.

IDK...I'm not really interested in going back and forth and not sure how I'm getting sucked back into this again It's just that every time this topic comes up it starts to turn into the "I feel so sorry for you and your sub par educational district; our school must be so much more advanced than yours." Honestly, I just don't get the point. Many of the brightest students in this country actually come from schools that don't appear to share this Alabama private school's ultra-accelerated curriculum. IDK...might be something to think about.

 

[collegejunkie]

this thread is looooooong!

to the OP: do what is right for your family and based on your children's abilities (which you know far better than anyone). my parents used to pull my siblings and me out of school for trips and it was the best. we did have to lie (my district is one of those annoying, nazi types that will only let you miss school if you're sick), but that's not a big deal. we're all doing fine: two of us go to ivy league schools, and the third of us is currently holding acceptances to several nursing schools (waiting on a few more), so missing days/weeks at a time wasn't an issue in terms of college. again, for us, based on what we could and could not do. you need to do what's right based on your kids' abilities.

 

[collegejunkie]

Wow, this attitude never goes away does it? eveyone in the south must be an ignorant hick. Sorry, but no.
As with ANY state or city, it would depend on the school. We have several top notch high schools in our area, buth public and private, that continually graduate students with perfect or near perfect ACT/SAT scores and scholarships to Ivy League schools. I happen to work at such a school. We have 2 IB schools, just in our district. There is also a school in our district that teaches a pre-engineering program developed by the Boston Musesum of Science. Only about a dozen schools in the country have been certified to teach it. We have acouple of schools that habitually place nationally in robotics competitions, and several that are competitive on the national level in academic competitions. DD goes to a private school that is nationaly ranked. Everyone in Alabama is NOT stupid, and every school in Alabama is NOT substandard, far from it. Do we have our share of poor schools? Yes, but most of the state is also rural and living below the poverty level.
I am sorry to disagree with some here, but I still say that if my DD could miss a week of school and not have ot do anything to catch up I owuld question why that was the case. I am not asying no one should be able to catch up from missing a week, but that there should be something that needs to be done to catch up. My students in high school typically need at least 2 afterschool sessions to catch up on the concepts missed, and that is just in my subject. They also have to do this for the other 4 classes they take. A week missed is big chunk of material to recoup.

for the record, ivy league schools don't give scholarships (i transferred between ivies and one of my siblings also goes to one, so i am VERY familiar with the financial aspects of attending one). as for perfect or near-perfect SAT/ACT scores, i'm also going to be cynical because there are only a few hundred, if that, students who score above a certain score on either of those tests. i was one of only a handful to score a 2380 the year i took mine, so i doubt that there was more than one student from your district/school who scored that well. for you to say that there were multiple students like this would mean that those very few students must have all come from your school, which is not true. next, ivies love southern students because there aren't that many of them that apply/are accepted/go there. most students who apply to, and end up at, ivies are from the northeast or california. i'm not saying there aren't talented students from all over the country, but i don't think that's a good argument to show how good your school is (and it does sound like it is a good one). my high school was top-notch (i'm from long island), but i would not give them (administration, teachers, etc) an ounce of credit for my success. i think it depends entirely on the person/student.

 

[pacrosby]

for the record, ivy league schools don't give scholarships (i transferred between ivies and one of my siblings also goes to one, so i am VERY familiar with the financial aspects of attending one). as for perfect or near-perfect SAT/ACT scores, i'm also going to be cynical because there are only a few hundred, if that, students who score above a certain score on either of those tests. i was one of only a handful to score a 2380 the year i took mine, so i doubt that there was more than one student from your district/school who scored that well. for you to say that there were multiple students like this would mean that those very few students must have all come from your school, which is not true. next, ivies love southern students because there aren't that many of them that apply/are accepted/go there. most students who apply to, and end up at, ivies are from the northeast or california. i'm not saying there aren't talented students from all over the country, but i don't think that's a good argument to show how good your school is (and it does sound like it is a good one). my high school was top-notch (i'm from long island), but i would not give them (administration, teachers, etc) an ounce of credit for my success. i think it depends entirely on the person/student.

As far as my first bolded portion: my nephew goes to Brown and I know that to be the case as well

and as far as the second: well, let's just give you a high five on that one

 

[princessmom29]

Just out of curiosity, taking that butterfly unit as an example, just how exactly would a school introduce a new topic, have kids write a report, do a project, hatch butterflies etc. within one weeks time? Seems like an impossible task to me. How could they possibly do any topic justice in 4 hours? I'm not suggesting that they should do caterpillars and caterpillars alone for a number of weeks as of course that'd be overkill. However studying those caterpillars in combination with a number of other insects over the course of that month? That makes perfect sense.

IDK...I'm not really interested in going back and forth and not sure how I'm getting sucked back into this again It's just that every time this topic comes up it starts to turn into the "I feel so sorry for you and your sub par educational district; our school must be so much more advanced than yours." Honestly, I just don't get the point. Many of the brightest students in this country actually come from schools that don't appear to share this Alabama private school's ultra-accelerated curriculum. IDK...might be something to think about.

I am not trying to say that "myy school is superior" I just don't know where everyone seems to be getting that??? All I am trying to say by giving examples of the lessons my child gets is that a week of school missed actually is a LOT of material, for any child. To be totally honest, I think most parents vastly undersell what a child will miss in a week to make themeslves feel better about pulling that child out for a week. I give exapmles of what i KNOW my child would miss as a way of pointing that out. I think that, in most schools, those children are missing a significant chunk of material. Can they make it up? In the vast majority of cases yes they can. Would they have had a better understanding of it had they been in school for a week? Agian, in the vast majority of cases I would say yes, they would. I have total faith in our school's ability to educate my child, but am under no illusion that they are the only school capable of doing so. There are many other schools, operatring on other models, that do as well or better. My point is that if we are really honest about it, a week of school missed is significant. Most children can recover from missing a week, but they ARE losing something by missing that week. Most parents are blowing that off to make themselves feel better.

 

[princessmom29]

As far as my first bolded portion: my nephew goes to Brown and I know that to be the case as well

and as far as the second: well, let's just give you a high five on that one

for the record, ivy league schools don't give scholarships (i transferred between ivies and one of my siblings also goes to one, so i am VERY familiar with the financial aspects of attending one). as for perfect or near-perfect SAT/ACT scores, i'm also going to be cynical because there are only a few hundred, if that, students who score above a certain score on either of those tests. i was one of only a handful to score a 2380 the year i took mine, so i doubt that there was more than one student from your district/school who scored that well. for you to say that there were multiple students like this would mean that those very few students must have all come from your school, which is not true. next, ivies love southern students because there aren't that many of them that apply/are accepted/go there. most students who apply to, and end up at, ivies are from the northeast or california. i'm not saying there aren't talented students from all over the country, but i don't think that's a good argument to show how good your school is (and it does sound like it is a good one). my high school was top-notch (i'm from long island), but i would not give them (administration, teachers, etc) an ounce of credit for my success. i think it depends entirely on the person/student.

that may be true of Brown, but I know the Cornell does indeed give financial assistance, based on a combination of academic merit and financial need. I know of 2 students there now recieving such aid. I also know that a similar porgram has existed in the past at Harvard, as a family member benefited from that one. As to Act/ SAT. We had 2 students in our graduatinog class last year with a 35 ACT score, and will have at least one that i know fo this year with a 35. I know of 1 score of 36 at another school in the district last year, and several schools that had more than one 35. No one in the top 10% of the class last yearat our school scored below 33.

 

[pacrosby]

I am not trying to say that "myy school is superior" I just don't know where everyone seems to be getting that???

Really? I'm not trying to be offensive but do you really not understand why 'everyone' sees it that way? I mean, the fact that so many people do seem to see it that way should maybe be a clue. That is, in fact, how it comes across.

Most parents are blowing that off to make themselves feel better.

Nope, not to make themselves 'feel better'. There is a big difference between feeling that your child is not missing 'anything' and feeling that your child is not missing anything that really matters in the grand scheme of things (or that can't simply be made up); two things, it appears, you seem have trouble distinguishing between. Anyway, it really just boils down to difference of opinion doesn't it? You may think a unit on Mozart for a 1st grader is so significant that it should not/cannot be missed. Me? If you really want to know, I kind of think a unit on Mozart for a first grader is a total waste of time. See? Just a difference in opinion




ETA: and as far as the scholarships.......I think most, if not all, Ivies DO offer scholarships based on financial need. It was the strict academic scholarships (or athletic scholarships) I was referring to when I said Brown did not.