Boat-Schooling

Let's talk about Boat School!

First, I want to say that as much as I love my children, I strongly believe in formal education and greatly appreciate teachers (being a daughter, sister, and sister-in-law of teachers, I'm quite objective). 

We never aspired to homeschool; for us, it's a means to achieve our goal - sailing.

📖 Why school? 📖 

There are two ways of thinking about homeschooling: unschooling and letting the kids learn from the journey or home/boat schooling. 

We chose the latter because we know we will eventually return to land life, and we want them to have as much time as they need to focus on the social side first. 

📖 How do we approach it? 📖 

There are not magic tricks and lots of frustrating days.

What helps us is routine—we do school five days a week, starting at 7:30 a.m. (they wake up at 6…), so the kids are fresh, and we have our first coffee. 

We have a weekly plan, and each day, each kid does 2 workbooks and 1 app.

Parents are available for support until about 10 a.m. If they haven’t completed their daily tasks, they will not have friends, switches, or phones until they do.

We empower them to be independent. We mark the pages for the day and trust them to call us when they are done or if they have questions. 

📖 What do we learn? 📖 

We follow a curriculum from home (this might change soon...), so we shipped the books from Israel. It helps us create cadence and enables the boys to work independently with us only by supervising and answering questions.

In addition, we use everything around us for inspiration and learn more apps and materials from friends, updating our plans accordingly.

They learn language, English, math, coding, computer skills, and a selected subject (geography, biology, etc.) that we change every few weeks. 

We use a few different apps:

📕 English - I’m currently checking a new platform. The previous platforms were Hooked on Phonics, Lingo Kids, ABC Mouse

📕 Math - Matific

📕 Coding - Code Monkey

📕 Languages - Duolingo

This approach has proven effective: Gal is thriving, Bar is improving, and Or still needs our full attention.

I hope this gives you a glimpse into our educational journey at sea!

Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments!