Zoe was our second pre-school teacher to come aboard Green Coco — she is from Corsica (a territory of France), and recently finished her teaching credential. She wanted to experience alternative forms of education for kids. She was onboard starting in French Polynesia, and helped us fly to California and then to Seychelles, and make the transition across the world to our new boat.

Have you ever seen people so excited to make something happen, you just know they’ll be great for the job? That was Zoe.   As I picked her up with the dinghy at the dock in Bora-Bora, she said, “Only seeing you now, do I believe you guys are real. I mean, teaching kids on a cruising sailboat?  This is my dream.” 

Not a bad job…. Sailing from Bora-Bora through every island in the Societies, then being flown to San Francisco, skiing in Bear Valley, and finally 3 flights to arrive in Seychelles? Well, there were some monster challenges too….

Zoe flew from New Caledonia to French Polynesia to meet us, she arrived early because she was so excited to come aboard.   This was fortunate as she overlapped with Libby, our first teacher (see the post about Libby’s experience and her favorite teaching activities for 3yr olds). 

Together, Zoe & Libby helped smooth our intense exit from Tahiti, which included nothing short of:

– fixing a monumental list of sailboat systems on Selavi, our 46ft catamaran… it was craaazzy! We we massively behind on maintenance.

– selling our catamaran Selavi independently (without a broker) while launching our co-op partner boat program with the new owners. Read about the proud new owners here.

– moving our whole life in boxes & bags across the world, while running last minute trips in the islands with guests. Geez… so tricky and intense.

– meanwhile, we were also managing our new catamaran Nesi, which was on the opposite side of the world. We had exorbitant costs and ample problems with the boat managers.

So yeah, we couldn’t have done this without Zoe & Libby, who kept the girls in a regular routine the whole time, preserving a sense of normalcy and continued growth, throughout this hurricane of changes.

In French Polynesia, with a sudden “flip of the switch”, the unseasonal cool wintery weather in Tahiti turned into a brutal heat of summer, which was tough for everyone but especially Zoe. During this time of year we usually escape to the Tuamotus atolls which get a lot more breeze; but we had to be in Tahiti for the boat sale and shipments of boxes. The hot El Niño weather this year made it oppressive. Worse, we had to be in the marina for the final week, which we try to avoid at all costs. 

Talk about insult turned to injury — when we finally took our airplane flights to California, Zoe got stuck in Tahiti because of visa issues! It was super stressful for the poor girl. Certainly the most chaotic airport experience we ever had, read our post here. 

The sweet relief of cool California air revived Zoe and she truly lit up during our stay in Bear Valley, in the Sierra mountains.  We all lit up!  We called it the ultimate vacation for tropical sailors 🙂

We learned from our previous travel mistakes, and went the extra mile to prepare for our 3 flight monster trip to New York, Dubai, and Seychelles. Like NASA engineers preparing a space shuttle to the moon, we needed everything to go perfect.   It did! Read about our lucky voyage here, across 12 time zones.

Zoe’s last month was February in Mahé, the main island of the Seychelles. We spent it mostly parked in the marina, figuring out the new boat, readying her for sailing. Oh yeah, did we mention Seychelles is nearly on the equator, and this was the hot season?  Let’s just say the air conditioning aboard Nesi wasn’t a luxury, it was a necessity!  We managed two brief outings to sea-trial her systems to visit some lovely beaches, coral reefs, and actually feel the sea breeze. 

Considering the absurd number of things we did in those 3+ months, it is truly a marvel that Zoe was able to “hold the fort” as she did. Zoe was super grounded, always there, fully present with the girls even when things were impressively uncomfortable (heat, chaotic mess, rapid fire changes).  

Importantly she was able to also recharge on her own. This is such a critical quality for a crew member. How else can we maintain positivity through all the ups & downs of boat life??  She took the bus across Mahé; kayaked around to private beaches; and embraced the chill of the A/C like nobody else.  “I live for the moment we turn on the AirCon,” she laughed. 

Now, Zoe is off to new adventures sailing with family, traveling with friends, and starting a teaching career in France. We’ll miss her and always be thankful for the HUGE role she played in this giant life transition, all the while being the best friend and teacher we could hope for our girls. 

Highlights of Zoe’s time included:

— 5 day trip to Raiatea with guests Lia, Nathan, and baby Leo ; 

— electric bike cruise of the entire island of Huahine; 

— spending New Years in Haapiti and kayaking fantastic lagoons in Moorea. 

— skiiing in Bear Valley! the blissful cold! 

— our drive around the beaches in Seychelles like Anse Soleil with their granite formations. 

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Below Zoe shares her experience, and favorite activities / approaches to teaching that she practiced while on Green Coco. 

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THOUGHTS FROM ZOE

Where can I start … it is difficult to put into words the whirlwind of these last 4 months. It is still hard to believe I found those guys. Even harder to think I will be leaving in a week. In my experience, I came on board as a teacher, then turned into a real crew member, but I feel like I am ending this journey as part of a family. And anyone that knows me knows there is nothing I value more than family. Sabrina, Kristian and Libby, who was already there, made me feel at home from the first moment, and their incredible mindset was the eye-opening asset I did not know I needed. I am not sure I have had an adventure that made me grow and reflect as much as this one, and for that I am forever grateful to all the people I have met. I am very thankful for Libby’s guidance and friendship, and witnessing how gracefully she interacted with the girls was a humbling experience.

About Naiyah and Kiki: they are the sweetest, kindest, smartest little girls I know. Their curiosity in everything amazes me every single day, and for any future teacher coming on board, you should know you may never have better students than them! My approach to teaching was very free and organic ; I am not an inherently organized person, I don’t like going by the rules but by the girls’ flow. So I used every opportunity (a meal, a conversation, something we would see or do…) to teach them something new. 

Here is an example of that; last night at dinner Kristian was telling us about some guys in the hardware store who did not speak English nor French nor Seychellois, and how tricky it could be to understand each other. I included the girls into the conversation by explaining that idioms were not the only way to communicate, that you could always interact with people even if you don’t speak the same language, and that body language is just as good, which ultimately led us to talk about sign language. So every subject, every moment is an opportunity to teach them something. What I like about this approach is that you don’t need to come up with unrealistic examples; you start with a live, direct experience, which makes it much more interesting for the girls because they feel like they are actors of the ‘lesson’ and not just passive students listening to a teacher. I also believe that they will remember those moments and the conclusions we come to way better. 

We also use a schedule as a guideline for daily subjects to cover. Our subjects are: French, Portuguese, Home Economics, Sciences, Arts & Crafts, Music, History & Geography and Reading & Writing. However the way to tackle any of these comes from the girls and the games / activities they feel like doing. It is then my job to find a way to bring in the ‘lesson’ by using what we are doing as the teaching material. For example, yesterday the girls wanted to play with the bananagrams’ tiles. We had covered all of our subjects of the day except reading and writing, which was perfect. The first letters Kaiana picked to make a word were P-A-M. I told her it would make a word if she swapped the M and the P and asked her to read the new word (M-A-P). I noticed that her pronunciation of the A was wrong because she was saying “meip”. Therefore I built the word G-A-M-E next to M-A-P and showed them the different pronunciations of A depending on the word’s ending. We kept playing with this, coming up with other words with an A and ending with an E or not. Our reading & writing lesson was done, all the while playing games and having fun ! Today they know that if there is an E at the end, the A will sound like “ei” and if not it will sound like “a”. Can anyone think of a better way to teach/ being taught ?? I wish I had had this experience as a student. 

I hope I was able to bring the girls some happiness and growth. I watched them change and evolve day after day. When I first got on board Selavi the girls did not know how to snorkel, they seemed afraid of it. We took baby steps (check the step-by-step lesson below in the list of activities) but after a couple of days training in the bucket we were off to a paddling snorkel session, and they did not want to get their heads out of the water ! I was feeling super happy because a whole new world was unfolding in front of their eyes. 

Finally one has to keep in mind that we are living on a sailboat ; we don’t make the schedule, we adapt to the twists and turns of boatlife. Every single day is different, and that part of the fun! My parents’ motto is “boredom was once born from uniformity”, and there is no uniformity on board, so don’t be afraid to get bored; you won’t! In my opinion that is the beauty of it, and the reason why it makes it such a rich and wonderful experience. 

Libby, thank you for our backgammon sessions.

Kaiana, thank you for your sweet hugs.

Naiyah, thank you for your beautiful stories.

Kristian, thank you for your wisdom; “ the answer is 39!”

Sabrina, thank you for all our morning swims.

I hope we meet someday again, 

Much love,

Zoë

ZOE’S FAVORITE ACTIVITIES WITH THE GIRLS:

Microscope

Learning goal: how to use scientific tools, learning how to observe and comment observations 

Action: We started in Tahiti with Libby using a tiny portable microscope, but when we witnessed the girls’ enthusiasm for it we decided they should have a better one, therefore Sabrina ordered a real microscope (see pictures below).

We collect samples at the beach, on the boat etc (leaves, sand, hair, dead insects), we observe them under the microscope and I teach them something every time i.e looking at the leaf we could see the ‘bricks’, the cells that turn CO2 into oxygen, so we learnt about this and the role of plants for life on earth. 

Volcano

Learning goal ; the 2 different types of volcanoes and how/why eruptions happen 

Action: steps to build and execute safely /without mess 

• Build a volcano with cardboard or papier-mâché with the girls, paint it on the outside and leave enough space inside for a water bottle or another bottle recipient
• Put the volcano in a baking tray because it is going to get messy on the table 
• In the bottle pour ¼ dish soap 
• ¼ hot water 
• Optional ; add red colouring 
• Shake it 
• Add in white vinegar until almost full
• All at once add 1 tablespoon of baking soda 
• Then watch the eruption and enjoy !

Trivial Pursuit

Learning goal ; increase knowledge about anything you want !

Instead of buying a board game on the internet, we created a Trivial Pursuit game for the girls. The subjects are the same ones as those on our daily schedule, and we make the questions depending on the countries they are going to visit on their sailing journey so it is tailor made for them. Being my favorite board game, I was over the moon that the family enjoyed it as much as I. 

The girls collected shells to use as the pawns. 

Monopoly

Learning goal ; develop strategies, practice math and french 

Action ; girls love playing monopoly, sometimes we play it in french for them to practice and whenever there is money involved we do the counting on their fingers for math

Uno

Learning goal ; numbers and colors in french 

Action ; we always play uno in french and now they know all the colors and numbers in french  

Beach time 

Learning goal ; practice and learn different swimming styles, snorkeling and observing nature 

Action ; SNORKEL step by step

Step 1: Put fresh water into a river made bin and sprinkle interesting objects to look at in the bin. Practice wearing their masks and holding their breath out of the water first 

Step 2 : practice holding the breath and using the mask underwater in the bucket. 

Step 3 ; Then, have them wear the snorkel and practice breathing through the snorkel while their head is out of the water. You can check their breath by plugging their noses and putting your hand above the snorkel’ end 

Step 4 : once you are sure they know how to breath with the snorkel and the mask, practice it with heads underwater in the bucket 

Step 5 ; Repeat step 4, in a bin of salt water.

Step 6: Once their level of comfort ability with the bins and breathing through their snorkel has improved, practice this activity on a paddle board laying on their bellies while the adult paddles over corals.

Step 7 ; they snorkel!

Math with magnetic numbers or tiles  

Learning goal ; awareness of the numbers, their order and how to solve simple equations with numbers under 10 

Actions ; teach them how to use their fingers to visualize the numbers they interact with, and teach them what addition and subtraction are about. Only use numbers under 10 first so they can use their fingers. Use the magnetic numbers to create a line of equation like ‘5+2=?’ and ask them to count on their fingers. You can also ask them to create an equation so they get used to the order of the numbers and signs

Reading and writing techniques 

Learning goals ; practice the writing of letters first, the sounding of letters and the association of sounds to read words 

Action ; 

• Bananagram ; for the bananagram technique read narrative above. 
• Magnetic letters ; do the same as with the bananagram 
• Paint and notebooks ; trace rows of letters and / or numbers with a pen and ask the girls to paint over them with a Q-tip. Repeat as often as necessary / can also use chunky paints they love playing with the texture!
• Use writing and reading activity books like Bob’s books 

World map 

Learning goal ; develop their sense of space with geography 

Action ; 

• I drew a world map and we coloured it (oceans in blue and every continent a different color) so they could associate colors to geographic entities + learn about compass and where North South East and West are on a map 
• Using a real world map we try to find the different continents and oceans using cardinal directions
• Finally we add stickers on all the places they have been / are going to visit so they know where they are and the journey they are going to embark on 

Creative writing

Learning goal ; develop their creativity and imagination as well as their narrative patterns 

Action ;  the girls love telling stories and they have a great imagination. Whenever we are on an activity and I hear them create a story (sometimes out of the blue!) I start writing it down in their story journal. We also have proper writing sessions where I ask them to roll the story dice and create a story that I will write down for them. I ask them to change the subjects or the settings of their stories sometimes to use different points of view

Moreover we created, together with Libby, a fun story for the girls ; I wrote it and Libby created all of the wonderful illustrations. The point of the story was to introduce Kaiana and Naiyah to NATO’s alphabet (NATO phonetic radio communication spelling alphabet). The girls like reading this story and I tried to include different countries in it so that they can spot those on the world map too (that’s how you mix creative writing/ art / reading / home economics and geography!)

Sensory activities 

Learning goal ; develop all of their senses 

• Music (hearing+sight)

Learning goal ; recognition of the instruments visually and by ear + work rhythms and memory 

Action ; 

• the first thing I did was asking the girls about the instruments they knew or wanted to learn more about. I drew pictures of those instruments so they could get familiar with them and we usually go back to them and they have to tell me the name of each instrument. 
• I then added some instruments they did not know about (violin, flute…). 
• The second step was to listen to each instrument with the drawing of it in front of us so they could associate sight with hearing. 
• Finally I took the drawings away and they had to guess the instruments by ear. Now anytime there is music playing we try to recognise the instruments that are playing. 
• We also play instruments on board ; balmy drums, ukulele and harmonicas. I try to come up with easy chords of 5-6 different notes and rhythms that they have to repeat to learn songs. 

• Smell  

Action ; we take whatever smells strong enough to be recognizable on board (monoi, mustard, cheese, peanut butter…) and they have to tell me what they can smell while being blindfolded 

• Taste 

Action ; recognition of food while being blindfolded

• Touch 

Action ; see Libby’s post with sensory bins 

Robot Suits with Carboard

enough said…

Exploring the Solar System

with a poster we found at the local hardware shop.