Home schooling on boat

[Gunther wurth]

What is the best curriculum to use Gr 1 to Gr 7, must be internationally recognized. Please help with any advice or links with easy access when living aboard thank you.

[Boatguy30]

I'm curious about "internationally recognized" are you worried they won't be admitted into 8th grade when returning home?

We'll look to homeschool to a relatively high standard but have no concerns about fitting into some type of regulation.

[Gunther wurth]

We are from South Africa and will eventually be sailing, our daughter is currently being homeschooled by a teacher, but we would like to find out what school curriculum everyone sailing is using, that when we go sailing we can homeschool on the boat and when we are anywhere in the world, she can also go to a normal school.

[SailsWithFists]

Originally Posted by Gunther wurth

We are from South Africa and will eventually be sailing, our daughter is currently being homeschooled by a teacher, but we would like to find out what school curriculum everyone sailing is using, that when we go sailing we can homeschool on the boat and when we are anywhere in the world, she can also go to a normal school.

I am not sure how all the world works, but one of my home schooled children was "unschooled" for several years and was accepted into a public school at the grade that matched her age. She had the opportunity to test up, but wanted to remain with children of her age. I have never heard of any school system requiring a "recognized" curriculum to be allowed to attend. Worst case, a child might be tested before being placed.

[amiller]

We "boat school". Our home state (Oregon, USA) does not require a formal curriculum, just that they test at certain benchmarks for 3rd, 6th, and 9th grade.

Our 3rd grader is very studious, and eats up any assignments we give her. The 1st grader is a handful, and doesn't focus...I suspect this is a 6-year-old thing.

For both kids we use a series of workbooks "180 days of..." for math, reading, grammar, problem solving, etc. This helps keep us at or above grade level standards

SailingSeaMonkey.com

[akprb]

We used Calvert, no complaints. Bottom line for those ages is just living and learning. Foster curiosity and questioning and they will rocket past their government educated peers.,

Our girls now 19 and 16 and seems we didn’t mess em up too badly :-)

[Mick55]

Here is a link to a family that is cruising with kids. They home school. You could contact them and find out how they do it. Sailing with Terrapin: The Crew

[Bulawayo]

we boat schooled our children. They underwent testing (we paid for this at ‘The British Council’) in various countries to ascertain standards - our eldest two are now at reknowned (Russell Group) universities having been offered multiple places. Without exception, all our friends who have also boat schooled their children have delivered well rounded children to the world, with many going to varsity.

[dick sargent]

For many years I have observed home schooled kids of fellow yachties mature intellectually and socially just fine. Sadly, for 65 years I've watched our U.S. public school system gradually deteriorate. It has gotten so bad that, without exception, I believe any schooling is far better than government schools. Your kids will thank you.

[gbowen]

We home schooled at elementary level. Calvert as I recall. We were living and traveling on our boat but we took every opportunity that offered for studying subjects that suited where we were. In high school my wife supplemented their studies with additional, college level, classes. Both our daughters did PhDs in science (Michigan and MIT). They always got along well together and were serious about their education. I am a fan of home schooling and keeping your children away from bad influences. As a friend of ours in NZ (a home schooler parent too) once said "The school experience has much in common with prison and the army". The kids had no problems assimilating into a US high school.

[Boatguy30]

Originally Posted by dick sargent

For many years I have observed home schooled kids of fellow yachties mature intellectually and socially just fine. Sadly, for 65 years I've watched our U.S. public school system gradually deteriorate. It has gotten so bad that, without exception, I believe any schooling is far better than government schools. Your kids will thank you.

You’re quite wrong. There are plenty of exceptions. But this guy isn’t even from the US so it’s irrelevant.

Better hope these dumb public school kids can figure out how to wipe you in the nursing home.....

[D.C.Y.]

Better hope these dumb public school kids can figure out how to wipe you in the nursing home.....[/QUOTE]

It's not kids that are dumb, it's the systemic failures of a one size fits all approach where kids are taught to test and not to think.

[Gunther wurth]

Thanks you so much for every response! We really appreciate it. We are definitely going to check out calvert and workbooks.

[akprb]

Originally Posted by Boatguy30

You’re quite wrong. There are plenty of exceptions. But this guy isn’t even from the US so it’s irrelevant.

Better hope these dumb public school kids can figure out how to wipe you in the nursing home.....

Just because there are exceptions does not make it wrong.

The tenor of your response says it all...

The State wants kids for a reason. They also want two parent working households for a reason and encourage single motherhood for a reason.

Adapt

We homeschooled through elementary then private to high school when we returned to the States from the soft socialism of NZ.

Our youngest decided to leave public middle school after one semester so we home schooled her through that period. The middle school was horrendous.

High School was a great experience for our oldest (home coming Queen and all), our youngest is a junior now and thriving. Can definitely see the difference those early years of cruising and home schooling paying off. They attend a public high school in the 90 percentile for our city, the rest of the five high schools in our city fall well under that, predictably and unfortunately.

Meeting and being involved with many of these kids in the public system from kindergarten or earlier, sobering.

Well that ought to get this thread a hopping! :-)

[nhschneider]

We took our children cruising for one year when they were in the 3rd, 6th and 8th grades. Fortunately for us, our public school district has a very active home schooling program and provided us with everything we needed, books, supplies, calculators - even teacher's books. We had to send work in regularly that was evaluated by our 'supervisor'.

My wife was responsible for 99% of the teaching and there's no difference in doing a lesson plan for one child as there is for 30 children. Doing lesson plans for three grade levels made a lot of work for her. It was fascinating to watch when a child understood a new concept and was ready to move on. It was also obvious when a child didn't get it, forcing my wife or in rare cases, me, to approach the concept from a different perspective. It was a major indictment of our education system for it was obvious that a teacher with 10 or 20 or 30 students would have no physical way to make the same observations.

The year after our 10,000-mile, year-long cruise, when our kids were back in public schools, each one of them was number one in their grades.

You might want to check out, Cruising with Kids by Behan Gifford and check out their blog, www.sailingtotem.com.

Good luck, fair winds and calm seas.