Our elementary school PTO puts on a mini-course night each year. The courses are 2 nights in two consecutive weeks teaching things like magic, cartooning, tae kwan doe, gardening, and sailing to name a few. I teach the sailing course. I make a small wood model to assemble and finish during the class. This helps teach the parts of the boat. We also go through safety stuff. I set off my inflatable life jackets on the kids for excitement (and the yearly repacking). We show extreme sailing videos and slide shows in the background (and I could use new Worrell tapes). The course has consistently been the highest rated based on evaluation forms. So while 5-9 yrs may be too young to start on-the-water instruction, it is not to early for peaking their interest in the sport.