I am a firm believer that experiences leave much bigger impression than do textbooks, so when we embarked on the homeschooling journey with our eldest kid a year ago, I told myself that field trips were a must. How much do you remember from textbooks or worksheets as opposed being “in the wild”? I’m guessing that the ratio is heavily weighted towards getting more memorable information from the real-life experiences of field trips.

My husband was lucky enough to live in Germany for a couple years as a kid. For his fifth grade trip, Dan’s teacher orchestrated a series of fundraisers so that her students could go to Holland for a week. Holland, people, HOLLAND. More than twenty years later, what do you think is one of Dan’s most prevalent school memories? It wasn’t his history textbooks that glorified Columbus, it wasn’t the hundreds of math worksheets, or any of the busy work. A school experience which he remembers more vividly than most was that fifth grade trip to Holland. Understandably so, how can a worksheet leave the same impression as stepping into Anne Frank’s hideaway? A weeklong field-trip to Holland is certainly not feasible for us currently, but we work with what we have and we savor the small field trips to parks, nature preserves, and science centers, because they absolutely still count.

The topic of what is “school” versus daily life comes up in our house a lot, with my husband and I trying very hard to make sure that our first grader doesn’t preserve the idea that “school” is merely a series of grammar books and math worksheets that she doesn’t feel like doing. Our trips to the beach, nature walks, ballet classes, the reading time our little bibliophile can’t get enough of, library trips, you get the idea – when you homeschool, it’s all school. Everything contributes to the mental, emotional, and physical growth of our offspring.

My daughter and I will often have conversations similar to this:

Me: We had a pretty awesome school day, didn’t we? We went to the beach. We saw fresh sea turtle tracks and a nest which hasn’t even been marked yet. We saved a catfish from dying on the sand, which really contributes to your animal rescuer goals. We went to the library to pick up your new book series. We spent hours reading books. We did a few math worksheets. We played Mad Libs. You went to ballet class. You read a lot. It was a great day.

First grader: It was a great day, but the only school stuff we did was the worksheets.

I go over each detail of our schedule and relate it to science, math, language arts, performing arts, etc. The Mad Libs that she loves playing were teaching parts of speech; saving the catfish allowed a close scientific examination of a species with which we don’t often come in contact; the ballet class not only contributed to her physical well-being, but also teaches her to love the beauty of movement and appreciation for how much effort dancers put into their craft, etc. This is all about a regular day, so you can imagine what kind of chat we had about the fact that I consider our weeklong vacation with family on beautiful Anna Maria Island “school” even though most of our regular “school work” would not be happening. So here are some highlights of why, if we had to report our attendance for our annual homeschool evaluations, we most-certainly would be “present” this past week. Here are a few subjects that we touched upon of our trip:

Geography: This is self-explanatory, but it’s definitely interesting to discuss the directional points on opposite coasts and the variation in some of the geographic features. How does the water and sand differ between our coast and the opposite coast? How does our location affect the way we see sunrises and sunsets?

Bonus Geography points: Exploring the island via trolley was a wonderful way to cover greater distances. We visited piers to look for differences between Bay and Gulf Waters.

Marine Biology: We can look at photos of dolphins and fish in books all we want. I am not discounting that book knowledge is vital. But when you step into the still Gulf of Mexico and hundreds of tiny fish are swimming around your legs, you see dolphin pods swimming close to shore and fish jumping out of the water to escape becoming a dolphin’s meal, and while walking on the beach you see the number of turtle nests marked on the beach, that is so much more of an impression than seeing the same information in a book. It brings up numerous scientific questions and observations to discuss: Why are the fish so much more plentiful in the shallow Gulf Coast waters than on our Atlantic Coast only several hours away, does it have much to do with the calmness of the water? Why is the water of the Gulf much more still than our Atlantic Ocean waters? What are the species of birds that are alike and different on the opposite coasts?

Bonus Marine Biology points: I definitely won’t forget to mention our lucky first grader’s experience of seeing a dolphin pod about 20 feet away while riding a jetski. How freaking cool is that?!

Language Arts: In our family, vacation doesn’t mean taking a break from evening reading time. That’s a necessity always and we treat bedtime reading pretty religiously. It was fun to watch our little one decide exactly which books she would be bringing with her on our trip. It was wonderful to watch as she scouted spots around our rental house to read and it was very heartwarming to see our little reader reading aloud to her grandma/my mom in a hammock outside before bed. I will cherish seeing that memory in the making for a very long time. What a wonderful moment to cement the bond of reading further.

Bonus L.A. points: Scoping out the local library is always important. We never miss a library scouting session.

Sociology: You can’t help but explore the sociological aspects of a place without even intending to. My daughter and I gave a lot of thought to who we saw on the A.M.I. trolley. What percentage of people were evidently tourists and why? How could we immediately spot trolley-riding regulars?

Bonus Sociology points: When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? Well, if the, ahem, “Romans” are eating mochi ice cream, it would just be rude not to comply. You know, in the name of education.

Next time you are taking a vacation from “schooling,” take a moment to admire what you are actually learning. Happy school year, everyone!