On the plane ride to Boston for a family vacation, I can remember enthusiastically asking my then 8-year-old daughter what we should include on our sightseeing tour: “Should we check out the Boston Children’s Museum, the Freedom Trail or ride the swan boats in the Public Garden lagoon, just like in Make Way for Ducklings?” Her response caught me a little off guard: “Get real, mom. Kids just like to go to parks.”

Well, we compromised. We did find a few parks and we did ride the swan boats. We also enjoyed an afternoon at the Boston Children’s Museum and the Tea Party Museum, where the kids got the chance to throw crates of tea into Boston harbor, yelling “No taxation without representation!” just like their revolutionary ancestors. My daughter is 24 now but she still fondly recalls throwing those crates of tea. She has also become a bit of a history buff, and I like to think it had something to do with including “real” history in our travels.

Vacations are perfect opportunities for making history come alive. Boston is a great spot to experience American history and there are other U.S. cities with lessons waiting to be learned, too. In San Francisco, you can take a ferry to Alcatraz, once a famous prison, and actually walk in the prison cells. In Virginia, you can walk on Civil War battlefields and hear stories of the soldiers who gave their lives there, and the list goes on. Visiting historical sites is not just about reading plaques, either. Many have audio tours or real-live guides who bring the places alive with true tales of the time. If you seek out sites where kids can actually do things like throw tea into the harbor, they’re more likely to be engaged and remember what they’ve learned.
 
You can incorporate learning into the trip planning, too. Get out a map and have your child help calculate the distance you will be traveling. If you are traveling to a different state, find out what the state flower and bird are. Try to find children’s books that mention the places you’ll be visiting. Recruit your older children to compare rental car and airplane costs.

No matter where you go, when you return you can get your child involved in putting together a family scrapbook of your trip. He can write about what he saw, or draw pictures, and paste photos and souvenirs into the album. It will help build writing skills and surely become a keepsake for years to come.

How have you incorporated learning into your family’s vacation?