Teaching small kids to sail

I have 8 and 6 year old boys who have started taking an interest in sailing, they already skate well and the 8 y/o is handy on a surfboard. Besides a kid friendly rig would you go woth an old long board or a short/wide starboard "go" type board... leaning toward a go but hard to find...

My experience is that a long board is hard for the small sails to have an effect on. Tried on a Starboard inflatable first, but ended up with a 120l board for my son.
Mine is a Kode with full eva deck and slot for a centre fin.
Plenty of volume for him and he was able to steer it using 1.5 and 2.5 he was 8 and up to a 3m now he is 10.
Bonus is that it is a pretty good high wind board for me, so saves one board when we go camping.

What I have found when teaching light people is , boards tend to float on top of the water , ( cork ) . No forward drive apposed to drifting in the water is the first thing a sailer starts to understand .The ideal small , short board with a CB doesn't exist . The big floaty wide GO is really like a cork and won't work . A older longboard works but won't turn around well . The best I found for teaching , light and heavy , is a 1 m wide formula board . Super wide and stable , with the sharp rails go upwind great without a CB and turn on a dime . Only problem is that they are slow . (We're talking non planing learning ) . The joy of going out and returning to the starting point is ace .As soon as they are wanting to go faster , they are at next stage and hooked .

Have used a variety of board teaching small kids. Old school longboard and big wide boards eg go. The trick with kids is to make sure the fin is not too big as their sails are so small at that age. I cut down fins to freestyle size. I got that tip from a local shop.

Generally the board length of a longer board helps learning as it gives directional stability, unless there is chop and then go with the big wide boards

you might be able to add your own center fin to an old board with one of these

forcekiteandwake.com/products/slingshot-sup-winder?variant=32667721891894&gclid=CjwKCAjwqIiFBhAHEiwANg9szmk1roch2JPCuVWiUzxUNER0YroCRWJIx3OcZEdLnEzrc13YbWXU9xoCiBcQAvD_BwE

our daughter had her first few goes at 10yrs on an old SB formula 186, it was good with the small Ezzy kids rigs; so wide she never fell off it.
with just a single cut-down fin it was a struggle to stay upwind and we had to play the big wind shifts to get back to where we started.

next we used an old windsurfer one design. with the mast all the way back in the track she learnt how to steer the board, the board glides really well and we were able to cruise the lake; upwind/downwind, however the wally is heavy to lug around.

we now have a Fanatic viper. it fits in the van, is wide and comfortable to sail, tho not made to glide fast or head upwind like a longer board.

i just bought an old f2 phoenix 320, we now have a second setup so her friends can have a go, a bit longer and narrower than the viper, should work well.

^^ Do they still sail?

U could start ur own skool!
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1565173650355902&id=269984899874790

Thanks for info.

Hotsails website gives idea about size depending on weight and wind strength, for 10-15kts 0.8m is suggested for his size. Unfortunately they are not available here.

My sail repair shop agreed to make a 0.7m rig, so seems like problem will be solved.

In which wind strengths does your kid use 1.5m sail Cald?