At Give Kids the World Village near the Orlando theme parks, visiting kids can have ice cream every day for breakfast if they choose. They can celebrate Halloween in June and Christmas in July, complete with presents. But these families belong to a club no parent wants to join.
That’s also the idea behind the Bahamas People to People Program. Visitors are paired with locals of similar interests who might take them to church, running in Nassau, on a boat ride or a kayak in Grand Bahama Island or to dinner at their home. There is no charge.
lLarning about the flag starts in Baltimore with a visit to Fort McHenry (walk among the canons and peer into barracks that look as they might have during the Battle of Baltimore). Then on to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. to see the actual flag in all its glory.
First Lady Michelle Obama suggests letting the kids lead is one way to get everyone more active on vacation this summer. The first lady told Taking the Kids exclusively, “The key to getting kids moving is to find something they enjoy, and join in!” For the First Family, that includes biking.
Today people consider the War of 1812 “the forgotten war” but visiting the Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine is a good place to earn about it. Wherever you go in Baltimore, the kids are bound to learn something—maybe without even realizing they’re getting a history lessons.
On Richmond’s Emancipation and Civil War Day held the first weekend of April, I joined hundreds of visitors to take advantage of the open doors of the historical sites and honor the important event in American history.
Certainly you could spend all of your time in Washington, DC without paying to enter a museum—there are plenty of free ones to choose from. But two on our list are private and to the high school boys I’d taken to see the sites for the weekend they were worth the cost of admission.
Wherever you are this winter or wherever you’re planning to go for spring break (check out our ideas for Spring Break 2013, take time to visit a museum exhibit that would especially interest your family.
This January, of course, also marks the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and I can’t think of a better time than this winter — February is Black History Month — to explore civil rights in Washington and beyond.
There is no better time than the week we celebrate Martin Luther King Day and the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation to embrace teachable moments with kids about slavery—no more so than at the Lincoln Memorial and Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington DC.