The baby elephant reluctantly follows her mother away from the dried water hole in front of our tent as mom begins the search for water in this dry African heat. My nine-year-old daughter looks up in wonder as the elephant herd silently passes by and then returns to work diligently on her math problems. We have tried to establish a daily routine of school work including our four day safari in the Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.
When we planned our two-month holiday to Africa, we chose the months of November and December so we could enjoy the sunshine and have a hot Christmas with family. We wanted our daughter to learn and experience things outside the classroom, but at the same time, we didn't want her to fall behind, or feel completely removed from school when she returned.
Here are five tips to keeping up with school when on extended holiday:
Plan ahead with the teacher because it provides a study focus. Our daughter is in French immersion so we collected materials before our holiday.
Create a holiday study contract that involves everyone's input and agreement. Our contract outlined the roles, responsibilities and consequences for each of us. We included concrete and affective things such as reading 20 minutes of French daily and using respective voices when working together.
Keep connected to school. Most weeks my daughter shares her adventures and reflections in an emailed letter to her class.
Keep to the routine. We try to be consistent and get our 2 hours of study each morning out of the way with both parents sharing the workload.
Be flexible and open to new learning opportunities. Michael, our Zimbabwean safari guide, taught Tess how to identify the different tracks of animals in the bush, and also showed her the beauty and cruelty of nature at the end of the dry season when she saw a mother elephant trying to revive her dead baby elephant. Veronique—a French born South African—we've met has kept Tess up on her conversational French class twice a week sharing animal stories about when she lived in Botswana.
Overall, our plan seems to work most days, but we do take breaks and remind ourselves that learning with the elephants is just as valuable as multiplication tables.
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