Exactly two months after casting off our home town in Sweden, we opened our school books for the first time. Until then, school holidays had not made education a major issue, but now school had to take place with greater seriousness.

We had done some preparations "in secret" to test and accustom Jessica and Jonathan to follow a schedule. The summer schedule had tasks such as reading, washing up, cooking, playing instrument, navigation, taking a watch, writing in their "country books" (posted on their corresponding sites) etc. We agreed on how many times each task should be done in the week. They were ticked off as they had been made and at the end of the week, the outcome was compared with the goals.

Now, this had to be turned into more serious planning and work. With great eagerness, at 10.00 am on 13 August, the school books were taken out of the cupboard and were split between Jessica and Jonathan. We went through what we had been discussing with the teachers earlier this spring (see Preparation).

Then we planned the week to come, how far Jessica and Jonathan respectively wanted to get in their Maths book, English book, German book etc. and what writing should be done. Jessica decided to write about "St John's Bones" (following our excursion to Santiago de la Campostela) as well as writing a fictional thrilling story in an environment that we had lived through during our cruise. It will be interesting to see the outcome and we plan to post their work on their corresponding pages. Jonathan will also write about Santiago, write a travel log to one of his class mates who will be speaking about it in his class.

In the school break, Jonathan was rowing in the dinghy several times around Regina and after school, we all went for a swim! A school to be taken seriously in a very pleasant environment.

Karolina and I are content with the eagerness Jessica and Jonathan started their school. Hopefully this will continue. We plan to have school three hours per day, 5 days a week (not necessarily on week-days due to sailing schedules). I will revert with more info in due course.

After three weeks of school, we start to come into a routine.

On the Monday morning, we start the week with planning the goals for the week. For each child, we go through how for they should come in Maths, English, German, Writing and Reading. It is then up to Jessica and Jonathan to decide in what order they want to do their school work. From 09.00 to 12.00 school hours are held and we discuss what they want to do for the day. While one is doing some work on their own, the other child can receive help from either Karolina or me.

Karolina is the prime teacher for Swedish (Reading and Writing) and English, while I am primarily working with Maths and German.

To avoid internal competition, they are both working on their own subjects in their own books. At first, I thought some lessons could be held jointly, but then they are more focused to be "better" or "faster" than the other and with Jessica being older, while Jonathan is more pushing and forward, it does not yet work as well as them having their individual work.

Motivation is still high, since their old class mates in their old school are making an exhibition about our trip and one hour each week is dedicated to the "Regina-wakes". They write essays on what we do and what we see, which, of course, is a fantastic situation for Jessica and Jonathan. Their journey, their observations and their writing is being read and seen back home, they feel.

We are also fortunate enough to have fellow sailors who are interested in listening and reading what Jessica and Jonathan tell and write. Also, the Internet is a way for their work to be "displayed", while we, of course, can't post all their school work.

So far, so good and we try to keep up our work with school work as efficiently as possible.

1 Nov 2005: Kids on other Boats and Swapping Pupils

Sometimes, we observe a lack of concentration from our dear students Jessica and Jonathan, resutling from a difficulty to really accept the own parents as teachers. "Do I really have to do this?" is a frequent question, just as "But now I really have done so much work already!".

What really helps is their knowlege that also the kids on other boats have school at the same time. Not only do they understand that they don't miss anything, but also it gives an assurance that all other kids do have school as well.

What has proved itself as very successful is swapping children with each other for school, which became equally popular by both parents/teachers as well as students.

Visiting another boat for school work was fun and gave a feeling of having school friends. Not each day maybe, but from time to time it became a habit to have school on another boat, while we got some new kids on our boat during school hours.

If one boat had built up an interesting experiment, for instance, it was also worthwhile to invite other children to watch and participate in the experiments, be it experimenting with ropes and blocks to understand simple machines, playing with flashlights, water and mirrors to understand optics by observing reflection and refraction or playing with marbles understanding potential and kinetic energy.

Since we mainly meet English speaking children, this had the side effect of Jessica and Jonathan learning English at the same time.

Contrary to what one might expect, especially after reading all our "organized" pages about schooling, home schooling is actually very tough and time consuming. I think other sailors with children writing books or home pages have not pointed out that fact enough.

It does not only take a lot of time and effort, but does challenge you as a parent quite a lot! We know from all our cruising families we meet that they are having very similar issues with their children. Whatever is being said, it is in deed tough to explain to your children why they may sometimes be able to miss out some subjects, while others are highly important. Subjects suddenly become negotiable in the eyes of the children and sometimes it seems that more time is being used to discuss why something has to be done than actually just doing it!

Rhythm and routines are key to good schooling. That is why schooling has suddenly become easier since we have come into "island time" in the Caribbean and find more regular time for schooling in the mornings.

In addition to our home schooling, the children are picking up so much from their friends and surrounding, of course. They are very used to be together with adults as well as other boat kids and their vocabulary is hence very grown up with little slang and expressions that mainly adults use.

All in all, for sure a very valuable time for the children education wise to go cruising and it will be interesting to see if the hard time acting as teachers will give any results when they're back in ordinary school.