goodbye Bequia and hello Martinique

we are just lifting the anchor to sail to Martinique ......off to a new beginning and new adventures

 

It’s time to leave Bequia and we are ready to sail up north to Martinique. We have been in Bequia on and off since beginning of December last year, so we believe we have spent enough time in and around the Grenadines and would like to spend now some more quality time in the French Islands like Martinique and Guadeloupe.  We have really enjoyed our time here and consider Bequia to be unique in itself. The little township provides the eye with lots of versatile buildings and friendly people and is one off the best island in regards of fruit and vegetable shopping. We made the most of our time here and take lots of great memories with us: Bequia Music Festival, Yoga classes at the Fig Tree, Christmas Celebration with all our friends, Julia’s Birthday party with our friends off SV/Samsara, Beach afternoons with lots of activities for the children, snorkeling and fishing around the wreck, lots of sundowners on our Catamaran, other Yachts and the Beach and making new friends from Germany and Denmark.

Mayreau was the most beautiful Island in regards of snorkeling, the most picturesque beaches and making more friends. I loved it this little island very much and could have stayed here a bit longer.

Around Tobago Keys, Petit St. Vincent and Union Island we have found the best camera objects and I could have filled books with striking shades of blue that the ocean provided; dramatic sunsets and rainbows; amazing creatures such as turtles, manta rays, corals and colorful fish and beautiful people that we met on the way or through our Charters.

We did say goodbye to Bequia in style. Hendrik, Pia and Freya from Denmark brought over Hot Dogs, which dried roasted onions, remoulade and pickled onions…yum…they also brought over some very salty liquorice (for real pirates only) . It was Hendriks birthday so we had lots of Pina Coladas and PBC (Pineapple, Bananas, Coconut) and birthday cakes. Sylvia and Wolfgang helped to celebrate this occasion. They both left the next day and we needed another day to fill our bowls with fruit and vegetables, fueled Cool Change up on cheap Diesel and Petrol, checked out and were ready to go.

Homeschooling on Cool Change

Second time round and I once again really embrace our journey of homeschooling here on Cool Change. This time round I wanted to make sure I was more organized and better prepared. Back in New Zealand I already started to research which homeschooling program would suit us best. I am not a firm believer in the school system, however at that point I was still not that brave to break away from the system, so I decided that Calvert sounded great.  This gave me the little security card, illusion or back up plan.. just in case! Once we arrived on the boat I was under the impression that I could start with our program straight away. Little did I know! I did not take into consideration that just because we have done it before we can start off where we left last time; although life does not always flow in the direction you intend to go.

 

 It took us a while to get our head around living on the boat, different routine, different atmospheres, different temperature and different energy altogether. It took me a while to finally order our books and gather our learning material; I really wanted to use the knowledge and wisdom I attained from the last homeschooling experience.  I picked and choose which subject I thought we needed to elaborate on. Finally for Carlos I chose the Singaporean Math and for Julia I ordered the Calvert Math program. I wanted to enhance their writing and reading skills, so ordered the appropriate material: writing skills, fluency reading program and grammar. The other subjects I wanted to implement as we move along.

It took us a few months to get into the routine and if I am really honest I did not really start with a proper routine until we finally arrived in Grenada. It helped to meet lots of other sailing families, which were truly committed and dedicated to their homeschooling routine. I would like to express a special thank you to Michelle  on Catamaran “Jade” and Donald on SV/ Millport 2 for their inspiring energy and support that helped me to find my flow and motivation to teach my children to fly.   I am very happy and proud to say yes we are fully back and committed to learning and teaching again while living on the ocean.

Looking at the last 6 months of homeschooling I realized I am back to freestyle homeschooling. I have extended my research and explored different Curriculums; Singapore, England, Germany, the States and of course from New Zealand. They are all, more or less, have the same line it and so I took a bit of every country, mixed it all up and started to teach what I think is most important in this time and for their age. I believe that Life in itself is a school and we are here to learn important lessons. We have to live and make decisions from our heart, we have to be mindful and respectful to ourselves and others and we have to turn challenges into opportunities and embrace opportunities as they come our way.  We create what believe and we believe what we create.

Unfortunately you will not get any grades for this in today’s school system, so I still engage the kids in other subjects. We do have a timetable hanging on our fridge; however this is just for peace of mind. Not every day is the same on the boat, so you have to be flexible in your conscious discipline. We start our days with speed math – 100 equations to be solved as fast as possible. That usually gets Julia and Carlos going, unless they are in a bad mood. Then we have an hour of math – at the moment we are doing fraction revision and learning geometry in all kinds of variation. It always amazes me how much I learn while I am teaching. Our most favourite sites for this is www.math-drill.com , www.infinitegeomatry.com , www.homeschoolmath.net , www.commoncoresheets.com  and www.mathisfun.com .

We have a little break and then we continue with spelling, here I found a great program on the www.commoncoresheets.com that enables you to create different fun ways to learn your spelling words. After our spelling we integrate reading comprehension, here I have a lot of inspiration and material from the www.superteacherworksheets.com , best site after mathdrill and commoncore, those two are definitely my most favorite ones.  One hour reading on the kindle daily has improved Julias reading, spelling, writing and grammar drastically, so grammar is not necessarily making it to our daily to do list. In Grenada we had Spanish lessons, yoga for kids, book club and socializing in our program which kept us pretty busy during the hurricane season. We have now spent a few weeks in the Grenadines and Bequia and have added Science, Biology and German lessons to our timetable. It never gets boring during homeschooling and you can certainly be creative if you want to be.

 

If Julia and Carlos would let me I would start teaching early in the morning, and even though they can see the benefits, they always slip back into a late start; Julia’s words, “but Mum we can, that’s why we are living on a boat to have that freedom”. Well I cannot really argue with that, since I love and embrace that freedom for myself. There is so much other fun stuff to be found on the internet and I have now collected  so much material that I could entertain them for 8 hours every day, but unfortunately they have grown into individuals that have a mind off their own, and they have different ideas how to spend their days. Hmmm, once again that the problem when you teach them to be independent and living from their heart it might be different from what your heart likes to do. However I love the way they are working together and support each other in their learning and growing up. I always have to smile when they are confident in their own opinion and free and strong enough to voice that opinion. I know deep down I have done something right and hope that they will cherish this in the future.

 

Conscious Discipline and Homeschooling

I just had a discussion about my favorite subject - Homeschooling. When, why, what, how and whether or not to homeschool. One of the questions you have to ask yourself, why you want to homeschool your Child. Is it because you are not happy with the school system, because your child is learning outside the box, or you are living somewhere where you don’t have access to a public school. Living on the boat the question is not whether to homeschool or not, we have to make the decision what we want to teach our children while sailing the oceans and whether we want to follow a curriculum or not.  A lot of people believe that children are already learning a lot while living on a boat, which is true, however it is still a challenge to establish a routine (school or chores) on the boat. You not only have to take into consideration,  whether you want to explore the unschooling, before you expand into the homeschooling; you also need to consider what is your and most of all your child’s learning style, do you like to be creative or do you want to follow an already established curriculum . Lots of decisions are to be made to be able to tap into the most possibility and the potential of your own and your child’s mind and heart.

When I first started I did not know anything about homeschooling, luckily I met Alethea from Daytona. She opened the world of homeschooling to me; through her I learned how many ways of homeschooling there were and how creative you can be.  Creating my own curriculum has given me a lot of freedom; however I still haven’t been able to fully detach myself from the conventional school system. It is very much in grained how and what we have to learn and the biggest question is still how will they cope once they are moving back into society, where everything is ruled so much on performance, what grades you have on paper and outer appearance.

This is now our third year of homeschooling and I have to say I love it even though once in a while I have my moments with Julia and Carlos. Julia likes to sleep in, I like to get started early in the morning. Carlos does not see me as his teacher, I am his Mum. I believe that I think outside the square, but boy has he shown me how much bigger you can think outside that square and we are constantly challenging each other through that. I would say that I am flexible and take the teaching as they come, living in the moment as much as possible, if you have a child that likes the routine and needs to know how everything is going to happen, that can end up in a lot of frustration on both sides.

Whatever it is that draws you to homeschooling, I believe you have to keep one thing in mind, you as a teaching parent have to be conscious, disciplined and committed until your child is ready to take on this role and see it as their own responsibility. I want to teach my children that they learn every day, all day and see life itself as the school. Everyone is a teacher to us and if we can embrace each situation with our heart, challenges will turn into opportunities. There will be no mistakes only stepping stones on this journey to our own deeper understanding and living of life.  The changes we want to see in this world we have to start in our own heart and home.  

12th Bequia Music Festival

 

 

Why we haven't left Bequia

Well there are several reasons why we haven’t left.

Our first and lamest excuse is that we are waiting for the next weather window.

 

 

 

 

Our second excuse and most reasonable excuse is that I really wanted to establish our Homeschooling routine for 2015 before we are heading off again. That is usually a reason why I don’t like to stop for holidays on the boat, as it is the biggest challenge to get us back into a smooth routine doing our school work. Well let me assure you with a few firm words, patience, commitment and discipline from my side I am happy to announce that we are back in the flow of math, writing, spelling, and our new subject German reading and comprehension. Yeah….

 Our third and best excuse is the 12^th Music Festival in Bequia kicked off on Friday, so we went Friday night to experience the 13 man steel band, which was fantastic. That night we were busy making new friends with Pia and Hendrik from SV/ Artemis and getting to know Sylvia and Wolfgang better from SV/Silence. I also discovered my favorite national Bequia cocktail – PBC … Pinapple, Banana, Coconut touched with an ounce of Bayleys…its absolutely delicious and yum. On Saturday afternoon we listened to the music and observed the people at the Beach Hotel in Friendship Bay. We experienced firsthand what the Hotel Frangipani intended to create when they started the Bequia Music Festival 12 years ago. Bringing Music and people together through the vibration of love and movement and yesterday was simply that…the whole park was Rock’n’Rolling to the rhythm of local artists.

Our last and easiest excuse – we simply love the people, the water, the beach  and the atmosphere here in Bequia. What a great place to be ….

 

Back to normal or at least trying to

After all the festivities and celebration its time to go back to reality, if there is such thing in the sailing community :) First of all school holidays are over and we are moving back into the rhythm of our homeschooling routine, as you can imagine Julia and Carlos are not very impressed by this. Its back to speed math, reading and writing and from now on we are introducing a new subject: German! However before we start with our new discipline and routine for the Year 2015 we first say goodbye to our friends from SV/Samsara. Mind you this is a lesson in life we all have to learn making the most out of the moments when you are together with likeminded people; not being too attached when the time has arrived to say goodbye and how to stay in contact via email, Facebook, Skype and Whats App ..hang on what has happened to the good old postcard and the letter via snail mail :) Julia and Carlos are now communicating with their friends via face time and through their clash of clans and Mindcraft communities ...I suppose that leaves the postcard and writing an actual letter as a dull activity and too old fashion. Hope you are having a wonderful day and making the most out of the day.

Do you remember these swimming caps? I can clearly remember my Mum wearing one of those to protect her hair. We came across one of these beautiful fashion items on SV/Silence. The advantage is you will be easily seen in the harbor; the disadvantage some charter guests might mistake them for a mooring ball and will try to moore their boat on it...so be aware if you see one like this floating around ..it could be alive. 

 

Happy Birthday Julia

 Happy Birthday to Julia.

Wow..she is 13, with an own mind and a beautiful heart, she is our darling and angel of this family!  We love you very much and hope you had a wonderful day...big hug from all of us