I am never bored and always busy. Being able to multitask was for me a must and required good organisational skills.

I was sometimes ...Read more]]> This is the second half of a 2-part article first published in the South African Sailing magazine of April and May 2014.
You can read part 1 here.

Multitasking

I am never bored and always busy. Being able to multitask was for me a must and required good organisational skills.

I was sometimes cooking and teaching the kids and had to suddenly leave everything because my help was needed on deck or in the bilges.

I became a skipper, a baker, a teacher, a translator, a communication officer, a navigator, a trip advisor, a medical officer, a hairdresser, a mechanic apprentice and a weather router.

So don’t be afraid of discovering new skills!

Navigation

I like reading other sailing blogs, sailing books and magazines then imagining new places where we could be by ourselves, visit a city, do a good shop, enjoy a nice beach, explore some water falls or go diving. I was the one planning the routes and then we’d discuss it together.

It is useful to have reading material on board to guide you with your routes and what to see and do once you reach your destination.

On the other hand, going to places without knowing much about them pushes you to explore with a new eye and you might be surprised by your discoveries and encounters.

While we were doing navigation by sight, I was the one at the bow checking for coral heads, while Gregory was happy steering. I liked the responsibility of checking the water and giving indications where to go.

Overnight

A few people asked us if we were sleeping at night while sailing. Being only 2 adults most of the time meant watches were shared.

In fact we were doing 3-hour watches. From 12:00am and 3:00am, I would knead the dough, prepare yoghurts, enjoy my quiet time watching the stars and listening to some music. I was woken up around 6:00am with the smell of the freshly baked bread. After breakfast, I would start school with the kids and usually didn’t go back to sleep at 9:00am. Lunch was followed by some fiddling around, playing family games, reading a lot and enjoying our sail till 3:00pm. Around 6:00pm we would all watch the sunset, have dinner in the cockpit, read stories to the kids and start my new night of sailing.

I liked sailing at night. I felt empowered being the one in charge. With the darkness, all my senses were in on high alert. The sound of the water was reassuring, I felt protected by the stars and I was feeling the energy of Merlin going forward. My hearing was the most aware of changes. Even when I wasn’t on watch I would wake up because the sound of the waves had changed and I wanted to understand the reason for the change.

Passages

First I thought that P could be for pumps such as water pump, bilge pump, shower pump, sea water motor pump, watermaker pump, hydraulic auto helm pump… They are so many on board and they are so important for your general happiness. You could associate them with Patience when they don’t work properly! However, I left Gregory worry about the pumps.

So P is for passages.

As we fear a storm or a breakage, long passages can appear frightening. It is important to trust yourself, your partner and your boat and be well prepared. The technology is so good nowadays that anywhere anytime the weather can be checked (we used grib files via our e-mail system). Study and learn the minimum about the weather because it will be so much part of your life and decision making. Even squalls can be avoided if detected with the radar.

Leave only when you feel ready to leave and when all the conditions seem fine to you. Your boat should be well maintained, so in case of gear failure you only have to deal with a new problem not 5 at once. Remember you should have enough spare parts on board.

Frightful events can happen and their impact will be amplified by the fact you are by yourself and must work it out with what you have on board.

I panicked once during our Atlantic crossing when our DC to DC convertor fuse blew leaving us at night in the complete darkness without sailing instrument and a smell of burnt plastic. The other time was during our longest crossing from the Galapagos to the Marquises when I found a trickle of sea water in the starboard passage. In fact, we had a cross swell that we haven’t had before and a tiny pilot hole under the sink was letting some water in. On both occasions Gregory found the cause of the problem and fixed them, proving to me again that I had the right sailing partner.

Problems can happen but they are not a norm.

Overall passages are fantastic. You are by yourself on an open deep blue ocean, you have the most wonderful skies, you see green flashes, you feel so small in the middle of a beautiful environment. You are amazed by a flying visitor and you cheer proudly when you catch a fish.

Then you realise you are living something special.

Questions

It all started when one day, I asked my husband “how about going sailing around the world?”

I wasn’t scared of the answer because it was what I dreamt of doing since I was a teenager. It was suddenly clear for both of us that we wanted to do it. We had to go cruising and preferably with our kids still being young, which meant soon. This simple question quickly multiplied into hundreds of others. Every thought turned into a when, a how and a where.

If you are motivated, inspired and willing to throw the lines to live your dream, you will find the answers to make it possible. We even met people who weren’t even sailors a few months before their departure, some with very small budgets and others with small and simple boats.

The cruising life is open to all. There is no right answer, but there will be one or a few that will suit you. There are also some delayed answers and lots of changes that will happen along the way and the questions will never stopped coming.

Repairs

Having a new boat we did have some fine tuning to do. With proper maintenance we were able to cut down on the time and money spent on repairs. However, a boat will always keep you busy and TLC is always on the agenda.

I left the more technical side of the repairs to Gregory simply because he enjoys fiddling with tools and spares more than me. Again we didn’t plan our man/woman jobs division. It came naturally.

Rough seas

We didn’t have really bad conditions during our travels.

When we left Cape Town in November, the winds were strong and seas high. It took us a few days to find our sea legs and once we were in the trade winds it became much smoother. We had 15ft seas during our passage from Brazil to the Caribbean but the swell was regular and we got used to it.

Generally you try to sail when it is pleasant, with the wind in the right direction and during the right season so conditions should be good. You are out there to have fun not to prove anything.

Safety

My husband thinks that usually women worry more than men. He might be right on that one!

Safety is a very important issue for us and I made sure, for example, Gregory was wearing his man overboard tag and strobe when he took over the night watch. I made sure he was also wearing his life jacket/harness and was hooked on with the life line when he had to go on deck for manoeuvres at night or during rough weather.

The safety gear on board will help you feel secure. However, your behaviour should be the first thing to be on the safe side.

Tip

Have enough handholds around your boat.

School

Sailing with school age children meant we had to home school our three kids.

Growing up in a bilingual family, our kids followed a French correspondence system, which has been in place for more than 50 years. At the start of each school year, we received all our books and tutor guides. The children followed the appropriate curriculum and were sending an evaluation every 3 weeks, which were then marked by the teachers.

As it was in French, I was the one wearing the teacher’s hat every morning for a few hours. We met a few boats where teaching was a shared exercise between the two parents, but it seemed that most of the time it was more of a maternal occupation. Having done some teaching before, it seemed logical for us to proceed that way.

Our school time wasn’t all fun and I gained a few grey hairs but it was part of our sailing project.

Storage

Space could be limited so try not to take too much. Remember it is not just because there is more room that you need to carry more stuff. Think of your waterline!

My great grandmother used to tell me “Everything has its place and every place has a thing”. It stayed with me. I don’t like clutter and I prefer order. I use boxes and plastic bags and I try to be very organised.

Gregory does the same with the tools and the spares. In case of emergency it would be a great help to know instantly where things are. For food or clothes, Merlin offers enough storage.

Storing could also mean packing away for a long time. I stored some basic food like flour, oats, and sugar in vacuum-packed bags and then packed them away in our big lockers. As this is a great way to avoid bugs I wish I had done the same with rice and pasta. If you want to keep your storage areas free of bugs do not allow cardboard and other packages on board.

Tips

• Buy lots of bags for your vacuum pack machine as you might not find them again on route.
• It is now easy to find big vacuum-packed bags for out-of-season clothes and bedding. I didn’t think of them when we left Cape Town and then I couldn’t find any. We left our duvets in some lockers in normal plastic bags but had bad surprise when we next wanted to use them. These bags will need a vacuum to take the air out but they are really practical.
• We have few hard drives on board to store all our photos, music and movies. The photos are saved at least twice, kept in two different spots and in a dry bag in a safe place.

Terrific travels

Travelling is stimulating, but it could bring excitement mixed with fears. Will I catch my plane, how about my visa, where will I sleep, how long will I need to get over jet-lag, etc.?

Cruising different: different excitement and worries. Travelling with a boat is a very gentle way to go from place to place (no jet lag as you change time hour by hour over a few days), discover new countries and meet new people and new cultures.

We travelled with European passports and never needed visas but like any travellers the customs office was our first stop when arriving in a new country. You will get used to the customs formalities for yourself and for your boat. It might take some time but it is usually a stress-free obligation.

As you are travelling with your home, you will always sleep in the same bed. You don’t have to pack, unpack and acclimatise to a new space every time. You are self-sufficient. In fact, you are not the typical tourist. That will make you a different tourist once ashore and can add to your terrific memories.

Underwater

Water will be your new world.

Before leaving I didn’t think I would spend so much time with the water and didn’t prepare well enough for swimming costumes, sun protection and fins. However, I found some along the way.

Try as often as you can to explore the underwater world. If you sail in the tropics, the water temperature will be just perfect. The diversity of the corals, the colours and shapes of the fish, the feeling of being so close to sharks or manta rays, the silence, the pleasure of swimming all five together are a few of the wonders of the underwater world. In a few places we had better memories from our swims than our land discoveries. Exploring the sea life was something we really enjoyed.

Tip

If you like snorkelling or diving then it is worth investing in a good underwater camera and flash.

Victory

On a daily basis, there are so many little victories bringing a feeling of pride and achievement.

It is not only about making a safe journey. Victories can be as simple as finishing home-schooling early and smoothly, catching a fish, having our clearance finalised, buying a spare part that we were searching for, or we anchoring before darkness, etc.

These little victories are enjoyable because they prove you are capable of things which were so unknown before.

Vegies

Whenever possible we were buying fresh vegies and fruits, especially before longer crossings or when we knew we would need to be self-sufficient for a while.

Like most of the cruising boats, we had small nets to hang the vegies, hammock style, in the cockpit. Potatoes, onions, pumpkins, apples and oranges were stored in our “shop” (our spacious pantry) in two big plastic boxes with holes for ventilation. Fresh products were kept a long time that way.

Wind/Water and washing/Winch/Worries

They are all part of your daily cruising life.

Wind will dry your hair and will push your boat forward. Wind will take away some of your badly pegged clothes. Wind could scare you but will also blow away the bad weather.

We have a watermaker on board so water wasn’t an issue. However, we are still quite water conscious and try to save as much as possible. We were doing our dishes with sea water and only the final rinse was done with fresh water. We had some water saving features on our taps, especially those used often.

We bought a garden spray container which was a great way to get wet before applying soap. I could even “shower” 3 kids with only 2 liters of water! We were showering every day and rinsing after each swim.

I was doing a wash with our big washing machine (9kg) at least once a week.

The big deck brush was also out with every strong rain and once the boat was cleaned, we collected extra water to add to our tanks.

Tips

1. If you can have one, an electric winch is great. It helps me to winch Gregory up the mast without too much sweat. It helps me hoist the main sail by myself. It helps us lift our dinghy and motor on deck before a long passage. It reassures me as I know that my strength is not a limitation in my sailing.
2. Worries are natural but try to control them as much as you can.

Xmas

We had 4 Xmases on board.

After the first one we realised that Christmas and birthdays needs to be planned well ahead of time. You don’t easily find presents on remote islands, especially the gifts that your kids are dreaming of. The same applies if you would like a special meal.

We always tried to decorate our boat and it is a perfect occasion to keep the kids busy with craft activities.

For me it is also a great time to keep up my family traditions. So even if the weather is humid and hot, we have the oven on for a few hours baking Christmas biscuits and we have been very inventive with our Advent calendar.

Every December, Merlin is decorated and we don’t escape some obvious festive excitement.

Even if very simple we’ve had very memorable Christmases. It is good to feel that you don’t have to be part of the consumerism to have a perfect Christmas.

Yacht

Your boat is your companion and you should have confidence in her.

The type of boat doesn’t matter too much. It is more important to get out there. You don’t need to go fancy or big. Try to find the one which suits your needs and your budget, the one you think you can sail in heavy weather with and the one you can trust.

You will have the feeling that your yacht is never ready, which is normal. If the essentials (motor, batteries, rig, and instruments) are in good working order, you should be ready to start your new life. You’ll have plenty of time while sailing or during your stops to finalise some overdue jobs or find new ones to do. Your yacht will become part of the family and you will feel her soul.

Years

Life on board is not always a dream and it has a few challenges, but it is worth it.

Time seems to fly even faster on a boat and it is important to appreciate every minute of your adventure.

Zest

Sailing and particularly cruising is a good recipe if you are looking for a zest for life.

Even a short experience of it will open your eyes to so many possibilities and will start new dreams. One of my new dreams is to do it again!

If you have any questions contact me through our blog www.merlinsvoyage.net
I am looking forward to reading your cruising stories!

About Emmanuelle Buecher-Hall

Emmanuelle studied marine biology in France, then went to do some research on jellyfish in South Africa.

There, her life took a new course. After having built a catamaran, she went sailing with her family, crossing the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Merlin’s Voyage was inspired by this adventure. She is now living in Australia.

Her website (in French and English) is:
www.merlinsvoyage.net

Emmanuelle wrote Merlin’s Voyage, a children book mostly for children around 4-8 years-old. It is available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback, in French and in English.

Colour photos taken during the trip are the main illustrations.

At the end of the book, there is also a detailed index explaining nautical terminology and giving geographical information of the various stops.

Also on this website

• Part 1 of this article: A cruising wife’s A to Z – Part 1 (A to L)
• 12 Questions To 12 Sailing Families: the MERLIN family
• Merlin’s voyage: Living our dream for real!, by Emmanuelle Buecher-Hall

Seeing their enthusiasm for this, we parents agreed to assign the kids a group project as part of their ...Read more]]>
During our stay in Tauranga, New Zealand, the kids from two boats (Namani and Alouette) really hit it off. One activity they particularly enjoyed was learning to program computer graphics using a program called KTurtle.

Seeing their enthusiasm for this, we parents agreed to assign the kids a group project as part of their home schooling: to create a video documentary about life on a sailboat. The idea was for our children to learn new computer skills while producing an informative and interesting video, not to mention having fun.

We thought it might take them one to two days, and they ended up taking four to produce quite a good five minute video. The video met all the requirements we set, which included a minimum length, use of different scenes / transitions / titles, as well as including a musical clip and credits. They decided that their audience would be kids who were familiar with sailing but hadn’t been cruising. The project also called on the organizational framework they usually call on for written reports: brainstorming, planning, outlining, drafting, editing, and finally, presenting their work.

As so often happens with boat kids, the three worked very well together despite only having recently met and an age range of 9-14. They worked very independently of outside guidance, taking advantage of a lounge room and power supply in the marina we were staying in while completing projects on our boat.

The assignment also met another important requirement: giving the kids something fun and interesting to do while we parents were occupied with repairs! Markus of Namani acted as tech support, but for the most part, the kids were able to figure out the home video-making program (“kdenlive”) through logic, trial, and error, and the resulting video is entirely their own work.

To follow up the assignment, each of the kids wrote a reflection on the project (what worked well, what we could have done differently, what was difficult, etc). Katie, Nicky, and William are quite proud of their work and justifiably so.

It’s great to let kids speak their own minds about cruising, and we hope that others will find their work interesting and informative.

• Watch the video on NAMANI’s website and read Nicky’s reflection on the movie-making assignment:
Boat life – the kid’s perspective
A video documentary about what it is like to live on a sailboat by Katie, William and Nicky

•  Watch the video on Vimeo:
vimeo.com/58241254

More:

• Nicky’s school projects (Nicky’s webpage on Namani’s website)

About Nadine Slavinski

Nadine Slavinski is the author of Lesson Plans Ahoy: Hands-On Learning for Sailing Children and Home Schooling Sailors.

Nadine is a sailor, teacher, and parent. She  holds a Master’s Degree in Education from Harvard University. She has been teaching in international schools since 1996.

A  lifelong sailor, she has taken two extensive sailing sabbaticals with  her husband and young son. Living aboard their 35 foot sloop Namani  for three years, the family sailed from the Mediterranean to Maine, and later,  from Maine to the Caribbean and across the Pacific.

Articles by Nadine Slavinski have appeared in various sailing magazines and websites, including Cruising World, Blue Water Sailing, Caribbean Compass, and YachtPals. Her website, www.sailkidsed.net lists many free resources for home schooling sailors.

Lesson Plans Ahoy (Second Edition) is available from:
- amazon.com (Printand Kindleedition)
- and CreateSpace.com 
For details check www.sailkidsed.net.

More from this website

• Cruising children speak: Cruising children tell us about their experiences growing up aboard
• 6 Tips for home-schooling sailors, by Nadine Slavinski
• Nadine Slavinski answers 12 questions on sailing as a family aboard NAMANI

With careful decision-making and sensible preparations – just what you need for going cruising in general – you can let your children profit from an incredible learning opportunity.

Just ...Read more]]> Taking your children’s education to sea is not always simple, but neither is it a deeply complicated mystery.

Once you capture a child’s interest, learning can be inspiring and fun.

With careful decision-making and sensible preparations – just what you need for going cruising in general – you can let your children profit from an incredible learning opportunity.

Just look at any of the inspiring stories of families interviewed by Women and Cruising!

Yes, it does add an extra task to the cycle of watches, meal preparation, and boat maintenance, but home schooling in such a unique situation can also be rewarding for parents and children alike.

You don’t have to be setting off on a circumnavigation to think about educating afloat. A summer cruise has endless possibilities, too! Often we think of education as something that happens in a school building, but education should be everywhere, every day.

In the words of Mark Twain: “I never let my schooling interfere with my education!”

The tips below will get you on your way. Take a breath, then take the plunge!

1. Keep it connected

The beauty of education on board is the opportunity for authentic, hands-on learning experiences. Snorkel on a reef, or study dolphins! Go to a history museum, then sail in the wake of explorers and settlers.

A field trip to tidal pools can be educational AND fun!

Even if you choose to follow a packaged home-schooling program (see below), make sure your children are connected to the world around them.

• What phase is the moon in?
• When is the next high tide?
• What causes these phenomena?

A child’s natural curiosity can be kindled with only a small hint, and you’re off on an interesting lesson!

If your line lands a fish, take the time for a biology session before cooking it up. Later, link the experience to a lesson in animal adaptations or human physiology. This might be a more traditional lesson, but the student will be much more engaged now that he or she has had the fish dissection as a lead-in.

Fish dissection

These are just a few examples.

As a parent-teacher, you will quickly learn to identify and make the most of teachable moments. Underway and at exotic landfalls, you will find endless opportunities.

It does, however, require some finesse to shape a general interest lesson into one that also develops critical skills (more on this below).

2. Choose carefully

Early on, carefully consider what type of learning program will suit your family best.

Home schooling packages such as that offered by the Calvert School are one convenient option.

The advantages of these are the learning-by-numbers security they offer parent-teachers; all the planning is done, all the materials provided, and some degree of professional support is often included.

Just by going to sea, however, you are taking yourself out of a cookie-cutter mold, so consider whether you want to use cookie-cutter learning for your kids.

Packaged programs often include irrelevant or impractical lessons, such as complicated science experiments unsuited to a rocking platform, or topics like the Industrial Revolution. Try getting your kids excited about that in, say, the Bahamas!

Other families create their own curriculum to suit their realities.

Visiting a plantation such as Marie Galante’s Chateau de Murat can be the centerpiece of an interdisciplinary unit on the Atlantic slave trade.

Colonization and slavery are chapters of history that can be covered well in the Caribbean, and physics lessons can be found all over the boat.

Learning can be completely student-centered, but you will be on your own in terms of materials, a problem that can be overcome with thorough research.

The greatest pitfall of independent design is the danger of leaving out difficult or inconvenient topics that are nevertheless critical to developing literacy and numeracy skills.

I met one sailing family whose incredibly intelligent boys could quote extensive passages from Homer but not write a full sentence at age ten. This is an extreme example, but the danger is there for well-meaning, loving parents who subtly transfer their own passions to their children while sweeping their weaknesses under the carpet.

You can avoid this trap by following the standards from your home school district and refer to them periodically: have we covered the depth and breadth of this curriculum? Did we practice all the required math and science skills?

Families with two or more children should consider what their choice of program means in practical terms.

If you use packaged programs, your children will be following unrelated strands of work. That creates quite the juggling act for the parent-teacher.

With a more independent approach, you can create a one-room schoolhouse in which everyone tackles the same topics but at different levels. While the youngest tracks his or her own water consumption and learns to make simple pictographs, the oldest can track overall water consumption on board and learn about graphic displays such as line graphs or pie charts. You will still be managing a circus, but at least all the action is in one ring!

A number of useful resources exist for those who take home schooling to sea. I have compiled many on a website, www.sailkidsed.net, including links to curriculum documents and a list of useful books and educational websites.

3. Do Your Homework

Whatever type of learning program you decide upon, you will have to prepare well, just as you must prepare your boat well for your cruise.

One important consideration will be your eventual plans:

• Will you come back home or do you plan to settle elsewhere?
• What are the curricula of those school systems?
• Will they demand to see an official transcript to place your child?

Most school districts provide full curricular documents online, and you will be able to download a list of standards, benchmarks and/or learning outcomes for every subject area and grade (these detail what your child should be able to do at the end of each unit in each grade level).

I am firm believer that parents who home school their children must conscientiously use such standards to guide their work. This requires some finesse, as the following examples demonstrate, but you will develop a knack for it.

Let’s say the kids are excited about volcanoes. In many prime sailing destinations, you will be among active, inactive, or extinct volcanoes, so conducting a basic lesson in volcanoes and geology will be easy. Approaching Martinique’s extinct volcano, Mt Pelé, under sail. This is just one of many Caribbean volcanoes with a fascinating story. Now check your list of standards for literacy and mathematics. How can you pull those in? - Take Virginia’s Grade 2 literacy standards, which include: “The student will write stories, letters, and simple explanations.” That means step two is writing an explanation of how volcanoes work, including self-editing and details like: “Use correct spelling for high-frequency sight words, including compound words and regular plurals.” - Now check the math standards, where you will find: “The student, given grid paper, will estimate and then count the number of square units needed to cover a given surface in order to determine area.”Adapt this by using a map and estimating the area your local volcano occupies. In this way, you encourage your child’s interests and keep learning real while developing subject-specific skills.

Print out complete curriculum documents and stock up on books and materials before setting off. You might be able to purchase textbooks used by the relevant school system and use them either in a traditional approach or within your own tailor-made program.

The difficulty here is in knowing what is useful and what is not before you actually set sail. Sorry, there is no easy answer here!

4. Keep it Fun

The world is your classroom! By using clear learning goals, you can ensure that field trips are valuable learning experiences that spark ongoing interest.

Learning can be fun!

If you find yourself locked below decks slaving over dull exercises on a regular basis, something is wrong.

It’s time to take a field trip – a proper field trip, armed with field guides, notebooks, and clear learning goals. Move your classroom to the foredeck or the beach occasionally. Spice up your child’s learning with fun exercises in a context your child can relate to.

If your learning program calls for writing a fictional story, great! Challenge your child to write a pirate story based on your sailing area with him or herself as one of the characters. Linking subjects is another way to make learning fun.

The pirate story could be set against the backdrop of a certain period in history, and it could sneak in a little math with a problem leading to the location of the hidden treasure chest.

Another example is to collect and identify shells, and then incorporate them in an art project. The list can go on and on.

If you treat learning as a heavy chore, your children will echo this attitude and everyone will suffer.

On the other hand, if you can establish a playful yet disciplined spirit and stimulate natural curiosity, learning will become an accepted part of your day and one of the richest points of the cruising experience.

5. Share the Load

Too often, Dad is the captain with Mom doing everything else: childcare, cooking, and, last but not least, teaching. A certain degree of division of labor is natural, but too much can put unfair strain on either partner.

With both parents sharing the teaching load to at least some degree, children can benefit from the strengths of each and from two different teaching styles. Not only that, they are more likely to accept education as a whole-family endeavor, just as the cruise should be a whole-family adventure.

6. Stop Worrying!

Another inspirational way to kick off a learning unit: the author and her son race in ancient Delphi’s stadium, Greece.

Just thinking about taking over your children’s schooling can be intimidating, much like sailing away to unfamiliar waters. Don’t get put off by doubts or by land-bound naysayers.

Countless families report that cruising with children is the best thing they have ever done, emphasizing the family time and eye-opening experiences their children benefit from.

Many also report that their children successfully streamline back into schools when the time comes, often academically ahead of their peers.

The truth is that cruising on a well-maintained boat can be safer and healthier than staying on land. Consider highway safety, or the germ breeding ground that schools can be.

Similarly, home schooling that is based on sound research and focused on clear goals can supersede what any walled classroom could ever offer.

The hardest thing is making the decision to go in the first place; after that, you will find that everything falls into place. Your children will enjoy the experience of a lifetime with the people who count most: their parents. And the lessons learned will guide them for a lifetime.

About Nadine Slavinski

Nadine Slavinski is the author of Lesson Plans Ahoy: Hands-On Learning for Sailing Children and Home Schooling Sailors.

A teacher, parent, and a lifelong sailor, she holds a Master’s of Education from Harvard University. In 2007-2008, Nadine took a year-long sabbatical on her 35-foot sloop with her husband and four-year-old son, crossing the Atlantic and cruising the Mediterranean, Caribbean, and eastern U.S. seaboard. She is the author of four books and has written for numerous publications.

Her website, www.sailkidsed.net lists many free resources for home schooling sailors.

LESSON PLANS AHOY!

Lesson Plans Ahoy! is a resource for sailors heading out on a short cruise, an ocean crossing, or a year of home schooling.

The book includes detailed instructions for six units in Science, Mathematics, the Humanities, and Physical Education; all are designed to be fun, practical, and relevant.

Lesson Plans Ahoy! is highly recommended to any parent considering cruising with school-aged children and available at major booksellers including Amazon.com.

Each unit includes information on:

- Materials required (selected for practicality on a boat)

- Age-appropriate adaptations (ages 4-12 in detail)

- Activities and assignments children will enjoy doing

- Tips for cross-curricular links and enrichment

- Suggested resources to support learning

An appendix links science and mathematics units to national and state curricula for ages 4-12 from the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK so that home schooling students can keep pace with expectations in their home systems.

Read also on this website

• Nadine SLAVINSKI answers 12 questions on sailing as a family aboard NAMANI
• 12 questions to 12 sailing families
• What does it cost to cruise as a family? One family’s first-year expenses, by Meri Faulkner

More information (external links)

• Nadine’s book: Lesson Plans Ahoy (Second Edition): Hands-On Learning for Sailing Children and Home Schooling Sailors is available at Amazon.com
• Nadine’s educational website for sailing families: www.sailkidsed.net

How do you handle home schooling aboard your boat? Do you have advice or tips for other families?

Let us know.

Email kathy@forcruisers.com or leave a comment below.