School Started August 1st

School started in early August and from my perspective it’s going really well. I try to choose days we don’t have much else going on and we are averaging 3 – 4 days per week so far. I’d like to get ahead to have flexibility to not do school when we don’t feel like it (what luxury!) or we’re in cool places. It’s not arduous, I select usually two subjects, Social Studies, Science, Math, LA or languages (French for Jessie and Spanish for Ross), for each day and we work for 2 – 2.5 hours. I do prep before the kids wake up (I’m up by 8 am and I roust them by 9:15 – we sleep in because we can!). I love the fact that I am re-learning all this cool stuff again (ecosystems, electricity, math, tides etc.). We’ve read The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society over many evenings of reading out loud and did a “Book Study” that included both written and presented reports – the kids (and Matt and I) really enjoyed the book and did very well with their reports. We are now onto The Life of Pi. Matt it taking a teaching role as well (Electives) – he is teaching the kids about engines. I think they’ve liked that best because it’s practical with lots of diagrams and getting their heads and hands into the engine compartment. Actually...I think they like "field trip days" the best...Venice, Delphi, the Acropolis...I guess that would be my favouite too!
They get a grade each day for "attitude"...most days it is a good mark but sometimes there are issues (grumpiness, tired and whiney, frustration). It’s natural, here they are on what feels like a holiday, getting up, hungry and tired and then having to learn from mum and dad – the easiest people in the world to show your worst “side” to – it’s our job. So, as with coaching soccer, I’ve had to reiterate several times that when we are in school I’m not “mum”, and they need to make efforts to “communicate respectfully”. Which is a good thing out of school too!

We've decided we all need exercise...hard to do on a 50 foot boat. So I've added a PE component recently. We had access to a gym in one place (Porto Montenegro...it was fabulous!) and we've been doing some running and/or exercises on the boat every couple of days. Good for the teacher too!
Below are their impressions of school so far, I told them to write honestly and that I would not edit it in the post. Make sure it’s Internet audience consumable is all I said. You can tell which one is the teenager....

Jessie's Thoughts

School is not an enlightenment but not a "oh no, not again". Having mom as a teacher is better than having a teacher from school because I can show an agrument about a question and can understand it better because she knows my learning capability. With my mom being my teacher I think that I can learn better and get through things faster because instead of going the speed of the slowest student in the class she goes at my speed. I can do things on my computer, listen to my iPod while doing work, etc. etc. etc. And we can have days off any time of the week. :-) I can also do school in my bed. I love my teacher!

Ross' Thoughts

School, oh God. Field trips are nice. But learning from your mother...yikes! It's like a teacher you can never get away from. And if you fail an assignment, you don't get dinner for a week. (joking!). It feels like summer school on a holiday vacation.