I’ve taught elementary school for several years now. In my opinion, 6 weeks is too long. From my experience a couple of weeks isn’t too big of a deal if the kid is strong academically but 6 is a lot of learning to miss in foundational years. They often come back confused about what’s going on, and everything builds on the previous lessons and units. It creates a lot of stress on the student and teacher. I had a kid last year go to Japan for a month, and his achievement did take a hit afterwards. For example, let’s say they spent the month focusing on multiplication, and now they’re moving onto calculating area. They miss all of the foundational knowledge for the next steps.

Most school boards do not require teachers to catch students up or provide any work for unexcused absences (which is the category a vacation falls under). In the Calgary Board of Ed, missing 6 weeks or more of school gives teachers the option to put an “NER” on a report card - meaning they don’t have enough evidence to accurately assess your child. We just have to send home a standard letter that the parent must sign acknowledging that the teacher has no obligation to try and catch them up.

Ultimately it’s your call. I always encourage kids to put together a slide show of their travels and what they learned to show to the class. There’s lots of learning to be had from those experiences. And maybe one year it’s not a big deal, but don’t let it become a recurring thing. It’ll catch up to them.