Recently my family went on an “epic family vacation.” We started out in New York, took a train cross-country to California, hopped on a ship for back-to-back cruises, and took the train back home to New York again. Although they can be avoided if you really don’t want to “do school” while away, there were a ton of learning opportunities on vacation.

Pack Fun Educational Activities

Do your kids enjoy sitting in one place nonstop for hours at a time? Neither do mine. But that’s essentially what we needed to do for the first (and last) leg of our trip. We had seats in coach on the train from NY to Chicago, and the train didn’t really have anywhere that we could go except up and down aisles or to the cafe car. This is definitely not ideal for small children, especially when quiet time started so much later than bedtime and my son wouldn’t sleep until the lights dimmed. Luckily we had packed activity packs for the kids. 

For my kindergartener, we had a Barbie activity pack (similar to this one). It included paper, worksheets, markers, and more. K loved playing with it and learning how to do new things like decoding (there were shapes/symbols representing each letter). It was interesting to see how her brain works since she did things differently and in a more creative way than I would’ve.

For my toddler son, we brought a brand new busy book. He loves busy books so was thrilled when I pulled it out and started applying the Velcro to everything. He kept trying to get me to go quicker, but I’m a perfectionist so made sure all of the dots were lined up with their circles. Getting the book set up kept him distracted for an hour, and the book itself was great for the entire trip! He absolutely loved pulling off the Velcro and working on his letters, numbers, animals, and more. And he somehow managed to lose only one piece on the last night of the cruise when he decided to play hide and seek with pieces and forgot where he put it (I searched everywhere and it was gone!).

Learn about the Places You’re Visiting

We took a two-week Hawaiian cruise that stopped in Ensenada, Mexico for a couple of hours. The second cruise went to Catalina Island in California and then it also stopped in Ensenada for a full day. Since we were visiting Hawaii, and my daughter is a Girl Scout, I looked ahead to see what badges or patches she might be able to earn while there from the local council. That’s when I learned about Hawaii’s Queen Lili’uokalani, which turned into a fun lesson about her and how Hawaii used to be a kingdom before it became a state.

Another Girl Scout patch she earned on the trip was the World War II Remembrance patch. Not only did K learn about the war, but we also visited Pearl Harbor and she learned about what happened there specifically. Many national parks have programs where young kids can become junior rangers by learning about the park, its history, and doing fun activities. K became a Pearl Harbor Junior Ranger and loved it! Unfortunately her brother was too small to participate, but he’ll get to at other national parks in the future.

Be Open to Talking about Whatever Comes Up

As a toddler, my son was prone to running around and being loud throughout the trip. Someone on the trip (not pointing fingers here) got him to calm down by scaring him – they told him that some of the people around us were police officers and that he’d be arrested. Not the best thing to say and we definitely addressed it with them, but it actually led to some good learning opportunities. I was able to talk to the kids about safety, talking to police officers if they ever got lost, and remind them about good experiences they’ve had with the police. Along with homeschooling, I bring my daughter to the middle school for speech therapy 1-2 times per week. The school has safety officers from the local police stationed there and several of them have been really friendly with the kids.

Towards the end of the trip, we were on Catalina Island sitting on a bench when a sheriff pulled up. I reminded my kids about the police being nice and my son was excited to take a photo in front of the truck. Several minutes later, the sheriff called us over and apologized for not speaking with us since he’d been on a phone call, then gave the kids sheriff badge stickers to wear. He also told us about some fun places that we could take the kids before getting back on the ship.

Note – the kids had no long-term harm from that scare tactic. They’ve been back at the school and have each continued to talk to the officers and smile and be happy to see them. One of the officers gave my daughter a paper airplane he made the other day (she was thrilled), and another tried to talk to my son (he’s still learning) and was smiling at him even when she couldn’t understand his answers.

Stranger Danger

Although following directions is something that we try to teach our kids everyday, it becomes even more important away from home. If my child doesn’t hold my hand at the grocery store, I may be more lenient because it’s my home territory so to speak. But if my child doesn’t hold my hand on a cruise ship or when we’re in port, it’s a completely different matter.

My daughter is extremely friendly and at an age where most kids she meets become her best friend (whose name she doesn’t ever know), and she loves to speak with kids and adults alike. During our vacation, I realized that I needed to address this. I love how kind, loving, and social she is, but the vacation gave me the chance to talk to her more about stranger danger and following directions. It was totally okay for her to talk to other kids and adults IF she first asked for permission to speak with them. She wasn’t allowed to wander away to talk to someone without asking us. I had to remind her about overhearing and not telling people her address unless she couldn’t find mommy and daddy and spoke with a police officer. On the ship, she couldn’t share her cabin number unless she was lost and with a crew member. She also wasn’t allowed to leave the cabin by herself because someone could grab her and she’d be lost. Although we know more about the dangers, we just told her that she could get hurt in the time it took us to realize she’d disappeared (we had two cabins so it was important to emphasize this since she wanted to go visit the other cabin and needed permission and supervision to do so. The one time she did wander to our cabin from the other one alone, I immediately took her back and made her apologize – which was good because they had just realized that she had left).

Learning Opportunities on Vacation

I’m sure there were hundreds of other learning opportunities on vacation that I’m forgetting, such as taking turns, respecting others, hula classes and learning about other cultures, etc. I think the most important thing is to be open to learning. Yes, you’re on vacation. But you’re also a homeschool parent. You are the one teaching your children almost everything. It’s just like making dinner to teach math skills, or holiday planning to teach home economics. If you pay attention to the world around you, you’ll notice a ton of learning opportunities, whether you’re at home or on vacation.