Any Homeschooling Cruisers?

[LBroxon]

We homeschool our daughter and I was wondering how many others there are who homeschool and cruise during the school year? Do you do school during the cruise or take the time off? Obviously, we make every opportunity a learning experience. We haven't done any formal school days on a cruise (because its vacation!) but that would be interesting learning experience.

[jwlnroe]

We homeschool and are cruising in a few months but not taking kids - not a huge help but they will do school work at the grandparents - if we were taking them id give them the week off and make it up later. So they can have fun cause they work hard during the school year.

[LBroxon]

We've done the same thing with leaving school work with them at the grandparents, which has worked out fine for an alone vacation. We've also taken her with us during the school year and done some reading about the countries we visited, but that is as much as we have done while on a cruise.

[askimdog]

We don't home school, but we make port stops very educational and based around our daughter. Our daughter is 9 and goes to a small school of 33 students ( she is in a 4-6th grade classroom). With work we can only cruise December-February, so we take her out of school (holiday cruises too expensive), we bring her homework and do it daily, but make up worksheets for each port.

 

Worksheets have local flora, fauna, collect leaves or shells, see local currency, color the countries flag with colored pencils etc.. We try to hit historic buildings, museums, zoos, eat local foods, always try to visit a school or orphanage and avoid beaches, ziplines etc..

 

All 3 of us love doing ports this way actually.

[floydfamily4]

We are cruising in 11 days with our 9 year olds (3rd grade). I will make them do some journaling and put together a report for when we return. Mostly we will take it easy. Yay homeschoolers!

[Colorado Kat]

I would think Mayan ruins in Mexico would be a great learning opportunity. Read up first, and them view them.

[floydfamily4]

We don't home school, but we make port stops very educational and based around our daughter. Our daughter is 9 and goes to a small school of 33 students ( she is in a 4-6th grade classroom). With work we can only cruise December-February, so we take her out of school (holiday cruises too expensive), we bring her homework and do it daily, but make up worksheets for each port.

 

Worksheets have local flora, fauna, collect leaves or shells, see local currency, color the countries flag with colored pencils etc.. We try to hit historic buildings, museums, zoos, eat local foods, always try to visit a school or orphanage and avoid beaches, ziplines etc..

 

All 3 of us love doing ports this way actually.

 

Would you be willing to share your worksheets? I would love to see them :D

[JeanieTheMom]

My boys have graduated. (Yay!) When we cruised when they were in high school, we worked on the way and on the way back (several hours in the car), learned about the ports before we went, and went to educational places, like Chichen Itza. That's all. That's the beauty of homeschooling!

 

Have a great time.

[gatorsfam]

aren't all cruises homeschooling cruises?

[thrillfan]

I homeschooled my daughter (she is now a freshman in college) we cruised every year late Feb. and I let her have that week off it was a nice break for both of us. :)

[OCruisers]

We were on a Panama Canal cruise with group of children homeschooled. There were about 50 or so of them. Seems the parents were members of something that planned "learning trips" for those who homeschooled.

 

Whatever, the children were delightful and well behaved and seemed to be having a great time. It was a pleasure to cruise with them! :)

 

LuLu

~~~~

[Lerin]

Personally I think travel to new countries and experiencing different cultures goes above and beyond what any classroom can provide.

 

Now if all you do on a cruise is lounge at the pool, then it's just vacation which is fine of course.

But if you take time to research a bit about where you are, interact with locals, eat new dishes, view museums and the like, even learn a few catch phrases of the local language, etc... then you are getting an education.

[Athankfulheart]

We are a home schooling family :D

We cruise with and without our children. When we cruise alone, they do school under the direction of the oldest "kids". When we travel together, we mostly vacation with a little enrichment thrown in, depending upon where we travel.

 

We "do school" for about 180 days out of each year, spread pretty evenly and with no "summer break". The rest of the time is used for volunteer work, rest, projects and travel.

 

We are cruising in January with ports in Coz, Belize, Roatan and Costa Maya. We plan on 2 beach days ( one with good snorkeling and an animal preserve and the other with a speedboat and lazy/fun time) , cave tubing and Mayan ruins.

I feel that is an adequate balance of fun and enrichment ;)

 

We have 8 children, including a junior and freshman in college, a senior, sophomore, 7th,5th,3rd and 1st graders. We don't cruise altogether very often due to costs and proximity from ports as well as our busy schedules.

[Mrs. Squirrel]

We home school our DS, 9, and cruise every February for winter break. I met a gal on our NCL Epic cruise a few years back. She has just begun home schooling her DS, 10. We are taking our kids in two weeks on the Pearl, because the Kids' Sail Free promo was just too good to pass up.

 

We school 9 subjects for 180 days on a year round schedule plus an additional co-op subject. We then typically take a two to three week break every six weeks. I do not make my son do school work on the cruise. It is not school time for us, it is vacation time. . .like any other family.

 

I have home schooled now for five years. Early on, I felt more like I had to 'justify' our time off by making it educational if that time off occurred when other kids were in school. Not anymore. We are schooling almost the entire summer while all the neighbor kids are off. I don't see their parents pressured to make their kids' summers educational! Lol. :D BTW, I also no longer fall all over myself to explain to strangers our decision to home school nor do I allow my child to answer questions designed to 'test' him.

[Athankfulheart]

I have home schooled now for five years. Early on, I felt more like I had to 'justify' our time off by making it educational if that time off occurred when other kids were in school. Not anymore. We are schooling almost the entire summer while all the neighbor kids are off. I don't see their parents pressured to make their kids' summers educational! Lol. :D BTW, I also no longer fall all over myself to explain to strangers our decision to home school nor do I allow my child to answer questions designed to 'test' him.

 

YES ! :D

We do year round as well with 1 and 2 week breaks and the odd an exceptional 3-4 week break. I just find that 4 weeks gets ALL of us out of our good routine. I felt the same way as you for the first years. I began homeschooling in 2001 when my oldest had just finished 3rd grade at a Montessori school. I only had 2 in school at the time. She is now a junior in college. My how time flies :( We have never taken school on vacation. Not once :p

[FrancescaH]

I'm in our fourth year of homeschooling our just turned nine year old son. We take a break but I created a cruise journal out of a composition book when he first learned to write. He has to journal daily while we cruise. It is fun for him because he can look at the old entries and remember previous cruises while realizing how far he has come in his writing. Otherwise we just discuss the places we are visiting.

[Ryancoke]

We homeschooled and gave them the time off. It was educational in its own way and our son spent a fair amount of time in the library. The flexibility of homeschooling is great and you can always make up time later if you feel they need it. Chances are you're using time more efficiently the rest of the year anyway.

[momof3cruisers]

I have homeschooled for 12 years now and our vacations are always just vacations. When my boys complain about neighbor kids being home for this I service day, or that whatever day, I cheerfully point out that they just took a two week vacation in Oct. it all works out.

[giselleacttwo]

We homeschool our daughter and I was wondering how many others there are who homeschool and cruise during the school year? Do you do school during the cruise or take the time off? Obviously, we make every opportunity a learning experience. We haven't done any formal school days on a cruise (because its vacation!) but that would be interesting learning experience.

 

We homeschool our three kids (2, 8, 10) and cruise during the school year. We just got off of a 28 day cruise on Princess and we didn't do school onboard, however, we met another family who did. This time around we started school in July because I didn't want to haul our school stuff on such a long cruise. We made the most of educational experiences both before the cruise and while in ports. My kids learned a lot about local cultures, history, and geology.

Edited November 29, 2013 by giselleacttwo

[rebeccalouiseagain]

My son asked me to home school him for 7th grade (I withdrew him from school in mid-Nov 2012) Because I am taking time off work in order to do it- I hunted for good deals and we traveled for over 30 days in the past year with schoolwork in tow.

 

Then he had a 10- day Mom/ School free vacation finally. We both needed a little break from each other and he was glad to see me and begin 8th grade home school (which he asked to do).

 

This spring we will be going to Europe and Japan and will be bringing work with us but will get the bulk of it done before we go.

 

My son isn't jumping up and down for joy to do school but we make it relaxing. We will find an empty lounge to sit and do work and sip on cool drinks. When the crew see us doing school, they walk over and start up conversation with us. They love to tell us where they are from and talk about their own children. It is really a nice experience.

 

It really depends how much you are going to travel and what the purpose of the travel is. Cruising really lends itself to relaxation AND learning.

 

I do try to make homeschooling fun and my son said that I'm a good teacher! That really made my day.

[djmess]

I'm a single mom and I homeschool my 10 y/o son. Just started Jan 2013. I'm the friend Mrs. Squirrel mentioned. She posted a few posts back.

 

We just recently returned from a cruise with her and her son. That particular trip was strictly pleasure for my son and I. Of course there will be talk and discussion about it with family, especially with the holidays and family visiting, but no formal written work for this particular trip.

 

Now, IMHO, travel can be very educational. My son and I just completed a 30 day trip in Europe that also included a TA. It was very educational as well as FUN! I will say, plans don't always work out. I brought my laptop as I knew during the TA portion at the end of our trip, we would have some down time. I had various assignments loaded and plans for my son to put together a PPT presentation to be presented to friends and family upon our return. Well, my laptop crashed and burned. It wasn't the end of the world. Especially where my son was concerned. As I am a former teacher and I love to create curriculum and lessons, we just decided to relax on that TA and buckled down with our lessons upon our return. Fortunately 1 on 1 instruction for us enables us to move quickly, so I do not feel like he got "behind" or anything. He has since worked on that PPT and will present it to family this Christmas.

 

Homeschooling is a blessing and very educational. I keep telling friends and family I am going to show my son as much of the world as I can, 1 cruise port at a time. Now if I could only hit that lottery. Oh wait, have to play it to hit it. lol

 

To all you homeschoolers who want to travel. Go for it. Don't stress it too much. A couple weeks visiting new countries, experiencing new cultures and meeting a vast variety of people is an education all in itself. Also, you are with your families and your children are ALWAYS learning!

[momto2js]

We homeschool and I take work on trips. Kids work on review work at breakfast and dinner while waiting for food. We have a vacation journal they write in. I usually have a related unit or books we work through depending on the destination. We have done a comparison of beach sand from beaches around the world (as an example). We get an hour to maybe 2 hours in a day, but that is similar to our wekends at home.

 

Ds is a competitive gymnast so vacations are more about being away from training then school work.

 

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Forums mobile app