“Hi Mrs. Mora, we’re going out of town next week and I wanted to see if you could gather my child’s work before we leave to have him do while we are on the trip. Thanks!”
Have you gotten this email before? Especially since Spring just passed or is coming up. Or maybe you are the one that sent this email to your child’s teachers. I’m sure I’ve sent this email before. This parent is doing their best. They value their child’s education so they want to be proactive and ask for what the child will miss so they can help their child not be so far behind when they get back from their vacation. Their vacation that isn’t happening during a scheduled break in the school calendar. I get that too. Some times it’s cheaper to go during the off season and some times that’s when parents can get off of their jobs. Completely understand. But somewhere along the way, I changed my perspective and how I personally handle vacations like this. And I wanted to share those ideas with other teachers and parents.
Vacation Time is Learning Time
I take the time to teach my son many different lessons while on vacations. This is the best time to teach life skills. Skills that will stick with them for years to come. If a parent told me they would be focusing on life skills during their trip, I would be looking for ways to give them credit for that in my class.
Below are a list of a few of lessons I’ve done and a few of the ideas that I plan to implement in the future with my 10 year old son to help support his education during vacation.
1. History- Starting with the obvious, add historical landmarks on your trips and take the time to learn about them. We learned so much on our Alamo audio tour and visiting the different memorials in Washington, D.C.
2. Language- Because we tend to travel to Latin American countries, I try to teach my son new words from the local country. In Argentina, my son learned that pollo (chicken) in Argentina sounds as if you have an Italian accent. He learned that Buenos Aires means good airs but better translates to fair winds. Going to different places allows us to learn and use new vocabulary.
3. Reading- Any time we go to a museum or some type of tourist attraction, my son will take the time to read all of the signs. He started doing this several trips ago without me asking or prompting him. We have learned so much from taking the time to read the signs. It also gives him a chance to practice his reading fluency, decoding, and comprehension. All things that teachers love to hear a child is practicing.
4. Life Skill- Money- On each trip, we give our son a budget that he is allowed to use throughout the trip on anything that is not food. This helps keep those trips to the gift shop in check. I encourage him to complete the entire transaction of purchasing the gift on his own as well whether it be with cash or borrowing my card to learn how to use the card reader machine.
5. Writing- I plan to have my child keep a vacation journal. I will have him write in it each night in our hotel room. This will be a great way for him to keep track of his memories and to practice his writing skills. When doing this, you can remind them about punctuation marks and using their best handwriting but it’s more about the experience of documenting than focusing on the writing being perfect. Studies have shown that reflecting on our day and what we have learned helps solidify the information from short term memory to long term memory.
6. Life Skill- Social media and Digital Citizenship. Have your child write the captions or post that goes with the pictures you chose to share from your day. Take the time to discuss the types of appropriate photos and things you should or shouldn’t post online. Also discuss how it’s safer to not post tags of locations publically while you are in that exact location. It’s okay to post it after you have left because you are no longer there. Talk about privacy settings of posts and how that changes based on the purpose of each post.
7. Life Skill- Transportation- My son saw a public bus last summer and asked how do you use the public bus. My husband who is from Chile where they use public transportation from a very young age laughed at the irony of the question. That inspired us to chose to only use public transportation during our vacation in San Antonio and for a short time in Argentina. My son learned where to buy the bus pass and how to add money to it. Then used his card throughout his time. He concluded that it was cheaper but not as efficient. This trip, he will learn how to use the Uber app with support as needed and how to use Google Maps to navigate us to our next destination.
8. Life Skill- Airport knowledge- My son has been traveling since he was 6 months old. He understand an airport and gates. But for our next trip, I plan to give him the reins. I am going to show him how to access all the information on the airline app and have him tell us where to go for each connection. (All except our first connection that only has 40 mins, eekk! Hope we make it to our second flight.) My first flight as an unaccompanied minor was when I was 12 with my brother who was 14 at the time. Allowing my child to learn the necessary skills of how to get around an airport will prepare him for the future when he has to fly alone.
9. Life Skill- Speaking Skills- Many times when we are on a trip, I will find opportunies for my son to interact with people throughout our day. Whether it’s addressing our server or asking for directions from a cast member at Disney. I want him to practice asking questions and communicating his ideas in a respectful but confident way. So some times, he does this on his own without prompting and other times he’ll ask me how can I say that to others. My son also loves to have conversations at the dinner table at the end of each day on vacation and he’ll ask each member to share their “Happies and Crappies” from the day. It gives us a fun little way to end each day which also helps prep them for that journaling I mentioned earlier.
10. Have fun! The most important part of vacations is to teach our children that it’s important to unplug, escape, and try new experiences that allow us to renew, recharge, and regenerate our love for our family and learning!
What other life lessons do you teach your children on vacation? Would you give your child credit if they showed evidence of this learning in your classroom? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Sara Mora
Sara Mora has been living her dream of being a teacher for the last 12 years. She studied Elementary Education at the University of Arizona and was selected as a Rodel Oustanding Student Teacher. Sara taught 1st grade in Nogales for 3 years before moving to 2nd grade in the Sahuarita Unified School District to be closer to home. In 2017, she obtained her Master’s in Educational Technology from Northern Arizona University. This degree opened the door for her to move into a brand new position at the newest K-8 in Sahuarita. Sara was tasked with designing and implementing a middle school Career and Technical Education program geared towards college and career exploration. And though not required, Sara worked towards getting certified in Career and Technical Education so that she could do justice to her position. After her first year in this position, she was selected as an Arizona Education Foundation Ambassador of Excellence Teacher of the Year for 2021. When she’s not teaching, she’s advising her Video Production Club and facilitating Technology Professional Development for her district. In her spare time, Sara also works as a health coach, enjoys volunteering her tech skills at church, traveling with her husband and son, reading, and making Tik Tok videos.