What about Disney is educational?

[luvmy3]

When I take my kids out of school for a trip of any kind I make it educational or they don't go that's just how it is and always will be that's why DD is an all A honors student who in middle school has already earned some high school credits as well.

So her birthday trip is 1 month away, is that the educational trip you are talking about

 

[jtowntoflorida]

These types of posts make me so happy that our school district allows family vacations to count toward excused absences, no qualifying as an educational opportunity required.

 

[ArwenMarie]

These types of posts make me so happy that our school district allows family vacations to count toward excused absences, no qualifying as an educational opportunity required.

Me too.

 

[Susiec]

So her birthday trip is 1 month away, is that the educational trip you are talking about

Part of the trip is to celebrate her birthday but that is not the whole reason of the trip. We are letting her pick a few things to do because her birthday is a month after the trip.

 

[WDSearcher]

When I take my kids out of school for a trip of any kind I make it educational or they don't go that's just how it is and always will be that's why DD is an all A honors student who in middle school has already earned some high school credits as well.

That's great. I was also a straight A honors student, and I actually graduated a year early due to earning HS credits in 9th grade. My parents still didn't pull me from school for WDW under the pretense of it being an "educational opportunity". Did I learn stuff? Sure. Did my parents point out things that they thought I would find interesting and perhaps even learn from? Absolutely. But that wasn't the point of the vacation and we all knew it.

It's great that you make it educational. I think what may have thrown people -- and what I reacted to -- was that your OP seemed to be trying to figure out a way to "sell" it to the school. As if you hadn't considered that Disney could be educational so you were asking "what's educational about a Disney trip". If you already actively work to make every trip educational, then even a really quick scan of just the descriptions of the parks -- Epcot and DAK in particular -- should have provided you with any sort of justification you'd need.

 

[surferdave]

I think some of you are making this out to be much more nefarious than it is. Nothing the OP said makes me think they want to pull a ruse, and I seriously doubt the schools include in their criteria that the school days must be the only opportunity for the trip that the family has. Hard to believe I see more cynical sourpusses on DIS these days than I do on Reddit.

I suggest letting the child make a video of some of the suggestions above to bring back for classmates to see; you might even compile it into a nice production when you return home. That might get her into it and provide some nice objective evidence that she was really learning about animals or countries instead of just riding Space Mountain all day. You might even be able to focus on things on her current curriculum.

 

[jimmysmom74]

Tough crowd today!LOL.
IMHO. My DS is just starting kindergarten, but I always have used WDW as a place to learn, as well as many other destinations. I don't see why, if your child is willing to put in the extra work, such as a report or project, they can't receive school credit. No one expects the OPs entire day to be ALL EDUCATION. Our children only go to school half the day when they are home and no weekends. Their normal life allows them to have fun and do extracurricular activities during the school year. I say teach your children and have fun. That's what makes them like learning. Sometimes the best lessons are learned when they don't even know it happened.

 

[BayouMickey]

I think some of you are making this out to be much more nefarious than it is. Nothing the OP said makes me think they want to pull a ruse, and I seriously doubt the schools include in their criteria that the school days must be the only opportunity for the trip that the family has. Hard to believe I see more cynical sourpusses on DIS these days than I do on Reddit.

I suggest letting the child make a video of some of the suggestions above to bring back for classmates to see; you might even compile it into a nice production when you return home. That might get her into it and provide some nice objective evidence that she was really learning about animals or countries instead of just riding Space Mountain all day. You might even be able to focus on things on her current curriculum.

awesome idea

 

[Susiec]

I think some of you are making this out to be much more nefarious than it is. Nothing the OP said makes me think they want to pull a ruse, and I seriously doubt the schools include in their criteria that the school days must be the only opportunity for the trip that the family has. Hard to believe I see more cynical sourpusses on DIS these days than I do on Reddit.

I suggest letting the child make a video of some of the suggestions above to bring back for classmates to see; you might even compile it into a nice production when you return home. That might get her into it and provide some nice objective evidence that she was really learning about animals or countries instead of just riding Space Mountain all day. You might even be able to focus on things on her current curriculum.

She normally does photos and journals ect. On any trip we take even if its not durning school time.

 

[SEA333]

I think you're going to need a LOT of luck getting approved under those parameters.

Were I the administrator, the first question I'd raise is, "What specifically makes October in Disney more educational than June in Disney?".
I'm with PP who suggested the YES class. To that, I'd add the Behind The Seeds Tour and other very specific educational features if you want this to fly.

Any my immediate response would be "Real-world budgeting!" followed closely by "We live in the Midwest - we can see firsthand how the latitude of a particular geographical location affects the same season. Autumn in Florida is vastly different than autumn in Chicago, and I want my child to see this difference firsthand"

 

[jimmysmom74]

One more add on from my above statement. Parents are educators for their children too. I give credit to anyone who wants to take a family vacation and bump it up a notch for learning. Good for you OP!

 

[surferdave]

She normally does photos and journals ect. On any trip we take even if its not durning school time.

Nice! My DD is a harder case; she would probably balk at the idea of a journal, but she's a ham, so putting her in front of a video camera usually makes her more agreeable.

 

[Susiec]

One more add on from my above statement. Parents are educators for their children too. I give credit to anyone who wants to take a family vacation and bump it up a notch for learning. Good for you OP!

Thank you. I really do make each trip we take educational in some way my DD wants to be a doctor when she grows up.

 

[jimmysmom74]

The good news is you got a lot of great ideas between all the judgement. Hope you have fun and learn a lot. I am going to keep some of these ideas for the future for DS.

 

[BayouMickey]

The good news is you got a lot of great ideas between all the judgement. Hope you have fun and learn a lot. I am going to keep some of these ideas for the future for DS.

IKR? I really like surferdave's video journal thing idea.

 

[Donald Duck888]

Parents are educators for their children too. I give credit to anyone who wants to take a family vacation and bump it up a notch for learning. Good for you OP!

I second this statement.

I work as an educator and truly feel the world is a great wealth of education for our kids if presented in the right way by the right presenter. Be that person a teacher, a parent or another caring person. Any moment anywhere can be a "teaching moment". Case in point I wove cell division into a story about chipmunks that i told told my daughter at bedtime last night. I guarantee she will remember more about that subject from "daddy's funny chipmunk story" then she would have had I told her to read a textbook on it before bed. Don't get me wrong there is a very important place for "traditional education" for children but there is also alot to be said for some other ways to present material.

A place like Disney is full of educational opportunities so long as they are looked for and presented in a way that is educational. So I agree if a parent is going to take a child to Disney and has the advance thought to seek out educational opportunities for said trip that should be commended. Can you go to disney and spend a week with no learning...... yes. Can you go for a week and learn alot ........ also yes.

So i guess what I am trying to get at in my own long winded way is to say to the original poster that at least in my opinion there are lots of things you can list at disney that should qualify as educational.

 

[IowaTater]

I can't remember if this has been mentioned yet but there's also the Hall of Presidents in MK.

I think a journal is a great idea. I do that and I'm waaaay past school-age.

The passport at Epcot is a good idea as well. Maybe, in AK, have her take a picture of each animal she sees and have her write down a fact she learned about them.

I've also heard great things about the YES classes.

If you're going during the Food & Wine Festival, that might be a good chance to learn about different cultures.

FWIW, some people on message boards will try to any chance they get. I searched online & there's some resources on how WDW is educational as well. Hope you've found some helpful tips and you have a wonderful trip.

 

[stephm0188]

I went to an amusement park for a field trip when I was in school. We used math and science to figure out the speed of the horses on the inside of the carousel vs those on the outside, how to determine the height of a roller coaster while standing on the ground, that sort of thing.

 

[JKSWonder]

My daughter did a journal and drew pictures of different things she had seen.

In Epcot, she "interviewed" CM's in some of the countries about where they were from. We visited the Living Seas and she did some research on some of the marine life there. We rode Living with the Land and she researched what hydroponics were all about and then wrote about it. At Animal Kingdom, we visited Rafiki's Planet Watch and she wrote about endangered animals.

This was all done at the suggestion of her teacher and was done in addition to her regular work. We don't have "excused" absences of any kind here, except for illness, but we still wanted to make the trip as much of a learning experience as possible in addition to being just a fun family vacation.

She is now 12 and it has become too hard to take her out of school for vacation anymore, so we are going the week before school starts. She begins taking a language this year, French, and I know she is excited about visiting France in Epcot. She's been before, but she has more of a real, personal interest in it now.

 

[btk2333]

These types of posts make me so happy that our school district allows family vacations to count toward excused absences, no qualifying as an educational opportunity required.

Me too- I can't believe some of the opinions on here... I can't imagine having to prove something should be excused...