Learning while on Vacation: Our Vacation Education

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My family took a spontaneous vacation this past week to visit family and get away. I recently reinstated our homeschooling schedule, but I knew that it was not going to be a traditional studying week. It was not, but we learned a lot without the books!

Here are some of the educational highlights.

Maps

My son loves maps, and he loved following where we were going and learning where we were. One time, my husband let my son direct us from the hotel to grandma’s house. He got turned around at one point, but he realized it because “the map says I’m going south, and I need to be going north!” He also turned me around when I turned the wrong way one night. “Mom, the hotel is behind us!” There was lots of learning as we traveled.

Dinosaurs

Near where we were staying were two different dinosaur museums. Since we began The Story of the World Volume 1 the week before our trip, this was perfect: as a part of prehistory, we talked about dinosaurs and fossils, we read a few books about the different kind of dinosaurs, we had fun at the dinosaur museums (one was much better than the other!), and in general enjoyed having a theme to our week. Imagine my surprise and delight when I later found my son imaginary playing with his grandma’s dinosaur figurines: he was throwing a ball at them so they’d fall over, pretending it was a meteorite wiping them out! It was a fun moment for this homeschooling mama to see. He learned something in the middle of racing his cousins through the museum’s halls!

Co-operation and Clean Up

Because the four of us were in small car and then a small hotel room for two weeks, Raisin got excellent practice in cleaning up after himself and doing his part. He had a “secret bed” (i.e., a hideaway) so we had to make it and put it away every morning. Similarly, Raisin also learned that if he did his writing page quickly and without complaining, then we’d move on with the day of fun. (I only made him do his writing three days out of the two weeks we traveled.)

Landforms

I brought along some reading page and comprehension pages to correlate that I purchased from Teachers Pay Teachers (this product) and it was wonderful for his level and ability. He did some of the readings and worksheets during our drive, and some after our arrival. I was delighted to hear his questions throughout the week: “Are we in a valley or a canyon right now, mom?” “Is that a plateau?” I love seeing learning in action!

Graphs

I made my son do a few pages of his Singapore Primary Mathematics 1B book while we were on vacation as well. Gratefully, he found it super easy and kind of fun to do! We learned about graphing, which has plenty of extensions into the real world.

I thought I’d share some similar-style graphing pages with you! These pages have an apple theme, perfect for your autumn lesson plans (if you happen to be in this same place in Singapore Math right now!).