Days of cheaper Sept. cruises seem to be over for our family :(

[joejo]

We have been lucky :) My eldest is in grade 6 in a Spanish bi-lingual program, so we have always been able to turn our travels into a school project. I am taking her out for 6 days in May, but with plenty of warning we can accommodate her schooling. This will be the last year that we will pull her out of school for travel though, as she enters Junior High next year and I feel it is too much to miss.

[bean24]

We are doing a family cruise the end of May & when we booked it, my niece & nephew had snow days for Tues & Wed after Memorial Day, so we hoped they would only miss 2 days. There school hadn't used a snow day in years. This winter they used so many snow days they lost a few days from this week, so now they are missing 4 days. Their teachers both agreed it will be good for them to do this trip, so off we go.

[Onessa]

. . . My DD (my only) will start high school in the fall. She is part of an accelerated academic program and is currently taking 2 high school classes in the 8th grade (Geometry and Spanish). .

 

Sounds like my DD (our only) - her school district's high school is across the street from the middle school so gets dropped off at the high school where she has Freshman Spanish and Science, and Sophomore advanced geometry in the am then gets an escort to middle school for band, lunch and her afternoon classes.

 

. . . . . I have found as she gets older being there is more important with a few exceptions - the week of Thanksgiving seems to be a total loss from an academic perspective. The day before any 2 or more day school break looses all momentum after lunch . . .

 

I so much agree! DD's district does a 1/2 day the friday before T-giving week and a 1/2 day on the Tuesday of t-giving week. Half days seem to be beyond useless and sticking that poor little old Monday all by itself there between makes it useless. So we've had no issue with pulling her for T-giving week the last few years. (plus it is "deer hunting" season here in WI and about 30-35% of the kids are out of school to hunt).

 

We've done Med cruises the last three years -- 2 years ago her class was studying ancient Greek history - we took her out of school for 3 days over t-giving and visited Athens, Mykonos (Delios), and Kotakolon (Olympia). Last week her lit class read a novel that was set in Pompeii just before and during the eruption of Vesuvius -- DD had been there last year and visited Heculaneum this past November. Her science homework this year over T-giving vacation was to observe matter as it moved from one form to another, while her classmates watch ice melt, water boil or paint dry (really!) she interviewed one of the glass blowers on the Solstice and was able to observe glass move from liquid to solid (and include a glob of glass in her report). She was able to report to her Spainish teacher that she understood the conversation between the waiter and sommalier she overheard in the dining room (and tell her dad that he should select a different red wine than the table next door had insisted upon!). She knows the difference between Catallon (sp??) and Spanish because we were in Barcellona and was facinated with the bi-lingual signs. She's seen professional musicians playing on-board, folk artists playing in the streets, and performances while in port.

 

Even now with the high school classes, she has little to makeup. By-and-large she'll be given some makeup work for math, but her teachers have all understood that she'll more than makeup for the formal classwork by her experiences (for example, she was exempted from the science paper, but did it anyway because the topic was just "so cool"). Once her homework was to "take lots of pictures" in Venice, because they were scheduled to begin The Thief Lord a few days after she came back (the book is set in Venice).

 

If your kids are open to the experiences and you are willing to put in some work - travel can be just as enriching as school work. But that's our family and our school district, yours may be different.

[ldfox77]

Good news is: Few days ago hubby and I bit the bullet and booked a 7 night cruise on Carnival Legend ( this is our 2nd time) for August, two weeks before school starts. :)

 

Bad news is: Our oldest is currently in 2nd grade and the boys (four of them) are in kindergarten. From now on I don't feel comfortable taking them out of school for a week to go vacationing even though it would save us some money. I figured we only have to do this for the next 12 years, right? LOL! :p

 

I didn't think they would lose out too much by skipping few days in kindergarten and my eldest excels in class so no worries but from now on, I think we have to vacation around school schedule.

 

What are other parents out there doing?

 

Homeschool.