kids and education

[susan]

We're planning to live aboard outside of the UK during our twin sons' primary school years. They're only 12 months old at the moment but I want to start thinking about their education on the boat. Problem is I don't know where to start. Does anyone know of any organisations, websites or individuals who could give us some tips and advice about it all? Thanks.

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[RPC]

you could look at the kids and family page on the cruising site

www.onpassage.com

There are links to education sites as well as general kids information

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[Anonymous]

If you are in Europe maybe they could go to a local school. There are reciprocal arrangements for EEC residents, I believe, although I don't have the details or know how to go about it.

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[Sybarite]

I was reading a tale of a family heading round the world and they highly recommended a home-learning course : http://home.calvertschool.org/.

Last week I was speaking about plans to a retired head mistress and mentionned the Calvert School courses. She had been brought up on them when her parents were resident in Mexico.

I have received their brochure which is very encouraging.

A lot of families on long term cruising often stay several months in the same location. They usually try to enrol their kids then in the local schools.

John

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[Tradewinds]

We used Calvert for 6 years (4+ thru to 10+) for our son which was generally very good and reasonably priced with everything (including pencils, rulers & rubbers) provided.

Obviously, there is a slight American bias for some subjects (eg History) and there is the American spelling to contend with but, all in all, the 3 R's are covered very well. We discussed our educational needs with our local primary school before departing and supplemented certain subjects (eg Maths) with books bought in the UK.

Our daughter went through the UK Primary system afterwards & Calvert compared extremely favourably against that.

Good luck
Nigel



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[ongolo]

Hi Susan,

you could try and find Nick and Jill Shinas who have been sailing and living on boats for about 22 years. Their three kids now about about 5, 7 and 9 years old.

The boats name is MELLOW MAWK and they wrote a couple of articles about 1 year ago published in PBO. It was about them completing a 50ft Dix in Cape Town.

I believe Jill was working on a book cruising with kids and educating them.

When I was there, the then about 6 year old boy had a thick book, he was concentrating and every so often he turned a page in the correct interval as an adult would. He was reading the Lord of Rings if my memory does not fail me.

These kids grew up on boats (I believe some were even born on a boat??), they all could read by the age of five and are amazing individuals. None of these dummies that grow up in front of TV. From an early age they had to use imagination and from my observation they are brilliant to he point of being aloof, not like to being bothered with too much kiddies talk. They rather read and learn. An amazing family.

PBO should have an e-mail address, but if you dont come right with PBO, I can find a contact address via Cape Town.

Good luck,

Ongolo


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[trouville]

i put my two childern in the local school,you go to the local marie (council) just to give your details,its the same more or less all over check the school first some have to many muslims and they are awful with girls and normaly disruptive, with a boat you just change port to be in the area of the better school.
your childern will normaly be fluent in about a week!!!!and youll have locals asking for your 3 4 5 year old to tell daddy and the shops will ask whos child it is as its French Italian is fluent and with a local accent!
France has the best schools if you keep away from the imigrent towns like marsells which is now north african.Italy is very easy and the schools should be ok but the classes tend to be to big and the teachers dont always have time to ensure your child is keeping up so there you will have to go through the day work after school to be sure your child is working,dont worry about the language your child will explain to you and so you will see if all is going well

when your child gets to 10 12 years old then you should stay in one education system untill university age or a private English French etc school (expensive now)
I would say France has the best system as it wants to promote French but all have good systems providing the other students are motivated speak the national language and your child is as well motivated


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[Rainchaser]

We have been living aboard with our two sons for the last several years. There are wonderful activity books that you can buy for younger children. It has been awhile but the first one was called something like "Slow and Steady the first 18 months". Then I moved on to prepackaged programs that had a lot of song and movement activities. Right around this time is also a good time to get tapes or CDs that have foreign language songs. We did French, Italian and now Spanish.

Between 2 - 3 the boys started to listen to conversational tapes with me in select languages. And we played games like asking where the toy was or how many toes they had etc. In the language we chose to focus on. We have continued like that building on Spanish as the primary second language.

Now the kids are 6 & 10. They are taking correspondence courses in two formats one on the computer (interactive math mostly) and then written courses in reading and writing. I grade these myself and quarterly there is a portfolio that is sent back to the course provider who keeps track of the courses, grades and promotions. Once a year we take a standardized test to make sure the children are on track with their peers. Any weakness found is supplemented by additional correspondence courses.

I have found that my two boys have different learning styles and so I have different courses that I buy for each. One is a very independent learner, inquisitive and the other does better with a more formalized curriculum.

The most challenging thing for me was that both were more physical learners then I was. By that I mean it was much better to have learning be an actual "activity" e.g. make a dish using local cuisine or spices having them involved to their skill level (ie little fellows can stir, smell, taste, while older kids can read recipes, modify and cook). We then discuss the climate, customs, and geography of a country having those crops.

One final thought. What ever you do in terms of distance education, it has to be fun for you otherwise it becomes sheer drudgery.


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