Pulling kids out of school for 7 day. Early or late in the year?

[LargoLori]

We are booked for a 7 day Western on April 9th 2005. We really wanted a May date after school was out, but not sure that will happen now. We are a little hesitant about taking our then 8 yr old 3rd grader out of school for a week. She will be going to a different school next year with a more challenging curriculum. If we do take her out of school we are wondering if late in the school year is better than early in the school year. Has anyone pulled kids out of school to go on a 7 day? How did you handle it with the school and did your children seem to suffer from a lost week of school? Any advice and ideas would be appreciated.



Lori

 

[carolsherman]

Just a word to the wise I to pulled my kids out of school for disney vacations and now I am having problems with them grade wise mine are 9 and 12 now. So now I have to do the vacation route only taking them out when on vacation which means more money and more people but their grades have suffered. I am not saying it will with your child or any other but just a word to the wise its nice while you do it but sometimes it catches up with some kids. Good luck!!!

 

[LargoLori]

Thank you Carol, I appreiciate the info. It's a very difficult decision.



Lori

 

[Makeupmania]

The school was very understanding and did not give us a hard time. My son is very bright, so thankfully he did have a problem picking up on the school work. We did take him out the week after winter vacation and during that time, he really didn't miss much. I think that the parent will have to take into account their child and the school...since everyone is different...what might be good for one, won't be for the other....

Good luck..

 

[SandraLee]

Is there anytime in your school calendar that has a couple of days off? We have two days in Feb (non-holiday week) that are only 1/2 days. There are two days off in March during a non-holiday week. Usually, you can find a week that will have at least 1 day off. Other than that, I think leaving at the end of the year would be better for elementary school kids. The only other restriction would be weeks set aside for standardized testing. My school publishes those dates pretty early and you would not want to miss that.

I know if DCL plans a repositioning cruise to the west coast in May, 2005, I will take my then 3rd grader out for that. I'll just have to deal with it!.

 

[SandraLee]

I did pull out my then 2nd grader for a 7 day cruise. Best time of his life! I'd do it again, but he is an EXCELLENT student and picks up lost work very easily.

 

[DVC4US]

Lori,

We have done this once before for a week and other times for a couple of days. I think the big thing is communication with the school and with your child. It does get harder to do as the kids get older. We have a 2nd grader and a 9th grader and we will be taking them out of school for a week in April to go on a cruise. The 9th grader really does not like to be taken out of school, so this will probably be our last time until she gets out of high school. We will be talking to the school and teachers before we go and DD's understand that if need be books will be taken on the cruise and time will be made to do school work. We took them out of school for 3 days last year and did not have any problems but I do think it really depends on the kids.

LeiLani

 

[eagmommy]

I'm pulling my Kindergartener out for but a week. I talked to her teacher and found out which week was better. The teacher is giving me all of her work ahead of time and my dd has to write a journal everyday of our vacation. Just check with your child's teacher. I can't say that I will do it again, but I think I'm well prepared this time. I'd just go with how well your child is doing in school. Go with your Mommy instinct!

 

[lisab1291]

Hi,

I pulled my 9yo out of school last May, for a 7 day. His grades are very good, so I wasn't too worried about him not being able to stay caught up. He brought all of the work he was going to miss & worked on it at the airport. We also had realy good communication with his teacher.
If he was having problems in school I definatley would not have pulled him out. We are actually going on another 7 day this May. Probabley the last one, he is moving up to middle school next year.

Lisa

 

[NCRedding]

I took my 4th grader out for a 7 night. She was only supposed to miss 2 days, but because of bad weather, those days were make-up days so she missed 4 days of school. It was a great experience. She was in the accelerated program which included doing an expert project. Before we even thought of the cruise, she picked marine biology. On the eastern, we went to Coral World, and she learned so much. I would do it again with no problem (in fact, we're booked for Sept when she'll miss 3 days as a 7th grader), She has excellent grades, and all of her teachers support her trips.

 

[MO Disney cruiser]

We've taken our DD out of school for a week every year since she was 5. She's 13 now. As long as you communicate well with the school and your child understands that the work still needs to be done everything s/b fine.

When we went to WDW, she had to do at least one lesson every night after we got back to the hotel.

 

[jbix00]

We are leaving Saturday on a 7-day cruise....

Our 2nd grader is no problem...she is switching schools because of our move to a new house and we timed the move with our cruise (leave the old school when we leave for our cruise).

8th grader - tough decision...straight A student. Took extra hard work to catch up upon our last trip when she was out for a week. This time it will be harder (advanced placement classes). She is getting extra work from her teachers and will be doing it on the trip down and back from the cruise (we are driving down from Maryland). She will probably struggle for a week playing catch-up, but she is up to the task and has done it before.

 

[DBMagic]

We pulled our 1st grader & 5th grader out in Jan for a week and had NO problem at all. Both are very bright and had no trouble getting back in the swing of things when we returned. We just asked the teachers before hand for any work that our girls could do before returning from our trip. We pulled them out last year in Dec for a week with the same result. My thinking is two-fold, they are only kids once and they'll learn just as much from you on vacation as they would have during that week of school.

 

[carolsherman]

Both of my boys are excellent students A/B average and I had great communication with the schools they did their work on our trips but eventually it does catch up with your child maybe not at first I have been doing this since they were in Kindegarden and swore if it ever affected their grades I wouldn't do it again. This year it did affect the grades so we go to school vacation weeks to go away. Not to say this will happen to everyone but it does in some cases

 

[kcashner]

You know, the cruise can be very educational...as well as providing learning material that will be used later. My DD was assigned a report on "any country." She wrote on Croatia, because our server was from Croatia. She chose to study French because there were several people she'd met on the cruise from France. On our recent cruise, there was another young person at our table (we had requested the same server.) His parents were quizzing him one night--where were our servers from, etc. He came up with the right countries, but had NO idea what part of the world they were in.

There's lots of geography, marine biology, etc. that can be easily incorporated into the trip. Of course, you need to put a little effort into having the kid's realize it. Trace the ship's route, talk about the nationalities of the islands, talk about Customs & Immigration. Ask the servers about their home countries...simple questions, like, "If I were to visit your country, what are the things I should be sure not to miss" or "how is life in your country the same/different as like in the US (or on the ship)."

I don't think you can blame grade problems later on having missed 5 school cays for the cruise.

 

[mrsfuzzmo]

I'm going to speak from personal experience. While growing up, my parents took all 4 of us girls on 2 week vacations every year during the school year. We were all good students. We've traveled all over the caribbean for 2 weeks at a crack and none of us ever suffered for it. Believe me, there is so much more to education that sitting in a class room. We learned about different cultures, how to treat people of different ethnicities, we learned about paying cab drivers and how to figure tips. We learned dining ettiquette and hot to act like young ladies. We discovered the ocean and everything in it, snorkeling, diving, sailing, (and mind you we started this when we were 4,6,8 & 9 yrs old). Talk about being ahead in life, when it came to science projects, a display of all the tropical fish I'd seen got me an A+. Geography was also a strong suit because of actually knowing where we were and how long it took to get there, and what kind of land is there, etc. I could go on & on & on. Make it a learning experience and your kids will not only love you for it, it will actually help them excel in school. We all did, 2 valedictorians, 1 salutatorian and 1 in the top 10% of class. Just can't get any better than that. I was an athlete and had to, because of a trip to New York with my parents, miss a week of volley ball practice. My coach told me that when I went to the Empire State Building, I had to run down the stairs as a part of my missing practice. I did and now I REALLY know how tall that building is!! There is sooooo much education to travel, and I hope that teacher as well as parents realize what kind of impact a trip can have on a childs life.

Mrsfuzzmo

 

[dizmomof2]

I always take my kids out for holidays. This year they ended up taking two weeks in Oct for an emergency family visit to Germany and one week on Feb for the pre-schedual cruise. Normally we would only take them out once but life happens!

We don't take any work with us on the cruise. It's a vacation after all! Id on't take my work and DH leaves his behind so why yould I have the kids do work on their vacation?! We do it in advance. I take a lot of time with teachers getting everything they will miss. Usually when we get back they are ahead because they never get done what they think they will!

In the end it's a personnal decission but here's something to think about... has your child ever gotten sick and missed a few days of school? Did his/her grades slip because of it or were they able to catch up in the end? My kids have learned more from travelling (without knowing it!) then the small bit extra they might have learned from school if they'd done the work at school rather then at home.

Now DD's class is studying medievel times and castles. Boy, that trip to Germany's paying off! School's important but so is real life experiences. You can make up school work but you can't replace time with family and hands on experiences.

JMHO

 

[Bbgrizzle]

Don't stress about taking the kids out. The only reason to worry would be if they aren't very strong students. Otherwise, let the teachers know in advance and get as much homework done BEFORE the cruise as you can. My kids have missed two weeks of school when we've done Disney vacations (WDW followed by 7-day cruise). They learned a LOT more even just from a day at Epcot than they would have at school. Their teachers all agreed it would be a great experience for them. In answer to your question, if I were going to choose either the beginning of the year or the end to miss school, I would choose a time toward the end. We went in May last year and it was fine. This year it will be early December and I think even that will work out fine.

 

[mobetsy]

We are doing exactly that (actually, 1+5 days of school, because we have to travel on Friday) with our 3rd grader in less than 4 weeks (3/20-27 Magic). Personally, I don't think early or late in the year will make any difference. When we booked this cruise 17 mos ago, when he was in 1st grade (!), I talked to both 3rd grade teachers about it. Both admitted that it's not ideal, and then both said, "Go for it!" They have grown children, and know that family life goes by way too quickly, and that school isn't the only thing in life. We will be starting next week to work ahead as much as possible; we want to avoid homework on the cruise (though I suspect the teacher may ask for a journal in lieu of some classwork), and don't want ds to be doing tons of make-up when we get back.

 

[jbix00]

Our school system schedules vacations so weird that we usually have no choice but to pull them out of school for a week-long vacation like the 7-day Disney cruise. Example - their spring break - instead of Mon-Fri off, the schools here have Thursday - following Tuesday off in April.