Back-to-school isn’t really a part of our lives anymore since school never really starts or ends, though our routines do shift with the seasons. We transition from travel and spontaneity to cozy home time and routine. Right now, we are solidly in our fall routine of sword fighting, art classes, and co-op.

What does boatschool look like these days?

Traveling, navigating, and exploring.

Crafting, creating, and building.

Reading, reading, and reading.

Programming, Minecrafting, and collaborating.

Walking, running, and climbing.

Experimenting, discovering, and growing.

If you ask my kids what they are leaning right now, you won’t get a simple list of what subjects they are covering, what tests they’ve passed, or what level they’re in. On the other hand, they’ll talk to you about their passions and invite you to share in them. They will listen when you tell them what you enjoy and offer their help. They invite you to share in their lives and are interested in sharing in yours. I’m raising humans, not students, and I’m proud of how well that’s going.

The nitty-gritty. Massachusetts makes for an interesting state to homeschool in, leaving the monitoring and regulating of homeschool families up to the individual towns. So far, I’ve found Boston very easy to work with. Over the summer, I send my letter of intent to the homeschool office. The hardest part is simply finding the address as they have changed three times in the four years I’ve been filing. This year, we filed with a PDF sent by email. At the end of the year, I provide the district with a summary of what we have done, as well as an extremely abbreviated book list including some of our favorites.