Question for parents with kids in school

[Lidian]

Due to some personal reasons, we will be pulling our 1st grader out for a week in April to visit WDW. I have a meeting with the school to discuss her absence, have reviewed district policy, there is no testing the week she will miss, etc. She's an excellent student, reading on a 4th grade level, scoring perfect on "challenge" spelling words, advanced math, etc. The teacher is being challenged at keeping her challenged! So, academically, she can handle missing a week.

My question is this ... We want to make this an educational field trip, as well as a fun, family event. What activities do you do with your kids to add to the educational value of WDW?

As of now, we'll work on any missed work she'll have from her teacher (spelling, math, reading, etc.), as well as keep a personal journal to recount what she discovered each day. In the journal, she will draw a picture and write a small paragraph about what stood out to her each day (which she will present to her teacher upon arriving back at school). This project will be similar to her creative writing she does daily in her classroom.

We'll have time set aside each day for her to do "school", but I know you guys have some awesome ideas on what we can do inside the parks - and she won't even realize she's learning!

Would love to hear what you guys do!

 

[formill]

Wow. Sounds like you are doing a lot. For Grade One I always think they are learning in everything they do- reading signs, menus, figuring out how much a couple things cost in a gift shop......just taking it all in......seeing where Disney is on a map..... I would not bother with any more "formal" homework while on vacation!!!

 

[poconoboatniks]

We had our son prepare an album with pictures for each day's
activities. Each picture had a sentence or two explaining what he
saw.

 

[skysmom99]

My kids, ages 11 and 8, will miss 2-3 days of school for our Nov. trip. I won't bother to have them do anything extra since they'll already have do make-up work. I'm a teacher and I'd never expect my students who go on a trip to do more than what their classmates did.

 

[MiniGirl]

Honestly, for a 1st grader, I would just go and have fun. Your dd will still be learning and it will still be educational -- even if you don't document it.

 

[dizneechic]

I agree you should just have fun BUT if you want to thrown in a little bit of "education" plan an extra day in Epcot. We had our kids go to Kidcot in each country and have their passports signed, we learned things like there is no such letter as J in China (so she altered the spelling of my ds's name accordingly).

We also took pictures of the kids in hats from each country for our photo album as well as a picture in front of each "landmark". The last part of this was Kim Possible. Since my ds6's class will be studying Japan and my ds8's class will be studying Italy we requested those countries (country requests are not allowed but if you turn around it's amazing how lucky you can get! ). We took pictures of them with the transponders and at each item we were supposed to find and kept notes about each of their special journeys in the country they will be studying so once that lesson comes up (in April for each of them) they can use the journal they made.

 

[Cruz91]

Your dd sounds a lot like ours. We've done a couple of different things. When we took her out in Kindergarten, she drew a picture each day of what her favorite activity was and wrote two or three sentences about it. For both her 1st and 2nd grade pull-outs, we had her do a PowerPoint. The first one was pretty much the same as Kindergarten - except she took real pictures and typed the sentences. The last one she did was much more detailed and included a timeline of Walt's life.

As others have said, though, she'll be learning anyway whether or not you make it a point to document it. In my opinion, the BEST thing she'll be learning is that time best spent is with family!

 

[laughinplace199]

Honestly, for a 1st grader, I would just go and have fun. Your dd will still be learning and it will still be educational -- even if you don't document it.

What she said.