Home Schooling is all about giving and sharing. Sharing knowledge with your children. Teaching them that when you give to the universe it comes back to you. The best way to create friendships is through being a giving person. Sharing knowledge is the way to a better world. Creating a community comes through everyone giving what they can and know. Sharing knowledge.
When we started out Home Schooling, I very early decided, that to create our own community, we had to be very active towards arranging meetings, events and play dates. I also wanted to strengthen the children’s feeling of normality by seeking out like-minded people.
So right from the start we went on with arranging meetings at out house, general meetings, meetings with a subject, seasonal events and playdates. All the skills we have, we have shared with other home schoolers. I have had guest students, taught sewing, acting, dancing, biology, natural science, geography and much more to those who have been interested.
We have been so lucky to meet a lot of wonderful people who has done the same for us. We are grateful.
Being a Home Schooler, gives you much freedom in how you choose to learn. We believe that the best way to learn, is through real life relevance. Learning from someone, who actually does the thing you enjoy and are interested in for a living, is inspiring. You can learn that way, if you manage to find a mentor, who is willing to take you on. In 2016 we were lucky to have such a mentor to take on our oldest daughter in her mosaic shop in Copenhagen. Our daughter got to observe trade, sort mosaic and help make an order for a table.
That encouraged us to think, that as a home schooler you can actually have as many work placements, as you would like. In theory you could try a new trade every week and see in real life if it was something you would like to do.
Our oldest daughter is very fond of Greek myths and in Copenhagen there is a museum called “Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek” which has Greek, Roman, Egyptian and so much more artifacts. We come there often and she loves the place. So she wrote to them and got a one week work placement there. It was very organised and she was very well taken care of.
2016-11-18 Ny Carlsberg Glyptoteket work placement.
Then our daughter also wanted to try to work in a library. Her favorite library is “Trommen” in Hørsholm. It is a beautiful library. So she wrote to them and got a work placement there for a week. That was also a very organised and exiting placement, where she got to go to meetings with the staff, sort books, arrange displays and so on.
2017-11-10 Work placement in Trommen, Hørsholm.
When our other children get old enough, so that work places want to take them on, we are thinking of the interests they have, what could be interesting for them. The next one in line, wants to become a dentist. She already goes with me to the dentist, to watch, and my dentist has already offered her a work placement, when she is old enough 🙂 The next child is very interested in biology and insects particularly. She has already attended ZooCamp a few times. But I am sure we can find something when time comes, that could be interesting for her. At the moment, we are looking for a publisher, who would like to take on our oldest daughter. Preferably in the Copenhagen area. Anyone who can help?
Our fascination with weird sea animals continue. This time the children has chosen to examine the Peacock mantis shrimp. You can see more movies made by our children on their youtube channel – Videnskanalen: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ECOh462jxQraolPZ53evw
People often ask us to tell about a typical home school day. So here we go. The main thing about home schooling, is that there is no such thing, as a typical day/week. You have the freedom to have a new plan everyday. But for us, there is a need to have a plan and the security of repetition.
Many years ago our oldest daughter asked to have a weekly schedule put up on the wall every week, so she would know what our plans were. So every week I make a new schedule and put up Sunday evening. Some things will continue to be on the schedule for a long time and others, are only one of events.
The subjects on the schedule is a mix of adult and child wishes. I have chosen that they do general subjects that keep their learning above public school level, so it would be easy academically to enter a public school, if we no longer are able to home school. But also to prepare them for high school or other later education of their choice. Then the children have chosen to have additional subjects, like Spanish, Latin and Chinese. Subjects and how often we have them can vary on our schedule. We can also have weeks where we do project work intensively.
Well, back to a typical day. Let’s start with today. Today we had a day at home. We try to ballance days out of the house and days at home. We often get to plan too much, especially trips and activities out of the house. That often leaves us exhausted and longing for a day at home to get back our energy and catch up on basic stuff. We also really like to get good food and to have time to eat. As a general rule, we try to stay at home in the daytime every second day.
We usually get up at around 7 am-8 am. Then we all do our chores, do our exercises and positive confirmations. The kids empty the dishwasher, they put away any clean dry laundry, they open the windows and air out the house to start of with a fresh oxygen filled house. In the evening I have put their books ready on the table, so they can start working when they are dressed and have done their personal hygiene. I hang up any wet laundry to dry and put on the washing machine with a new load. Then I do my exercises, while the kids do their individual schoolwork like math, Danish, English and German. I go to and from my exercises to help them when they get stuck and so goes the time until around 9 am-9:30. Then I usually get time to get dressed and get ready. I make breakfast, alone or with a kid who needs a break from school work. Then we sit down together and eat.
The smallest child pealed the bananas for the smoothie and went to the cellar to get frozen fruit from the freezer. He also chose who should have which glass.
We usually then do our common school work. That is the rest of the subjects, mentioned above. Today we did biology, Latin and biology project.
Biology is a common subject in our home school. On the picture we are using the book from Pirana and Politikens book Menneskekroppen. Today we were examining the function of the human organs.
I prepared bread in the kitchen while they worked on the Latin exercises, and then corrected them together with them.
Then the children worked on a movie for their youtube channel, while I prepared lunch together with the smallest child in the kitchen.
Test shot for biology movie. Getting lunch ready.
Then we watched their work on the computer while eating, and decided on redoing it after eating. So we shot another section of the movie, until we were happy with the result.
Then the youngest child and I made a beetroot chocolate cake in the kitchen, while the oldest child edited the movie together and worked on her musical as well. The two middle children sewed on their costumes for a dance show they are planning.
Then we were expecting two good friends to come over for a sleepover, but unfortunately they had gotten the flu, so we had to eat the cake on our own. Don’t worry friends, if you read this, we will make a new one for you.
Gluten free beetroot cake. Hot oat milk with cocoa powder and gluten free beetroot cake.
The at 3 pm we have quiet time until 4 pm. At that time you can do what you want to do – play on the computer, watch movies, talk to your friends on the phone, read, play outside or go where your imagination takes you. I meditate and drink tea.
Our oldest daughter did this lego project in quiet time. A Find Wally house.
Today we have a quiet evening. No spare time activities or work. We all enjoy having our meals together and being able to talk and relax in the evening with a movie or game together. The kids often work on creative projects in the evening, writing, sewing, knitting or drawing. They often also just play and make lots of noise and play music and dance.
We have a huge pile of second hand stuff for the kids to use in the living room and it brings about a lot of creativity.
So how does a typical week look?
A general example of our weekly schedule could look like this:
Weekly schedule february 2019.
The subjects at the bottom has stayed the same for a while, because it work well. We have a language a day, as the kids like languages. We have math and danish three days a week, because they got fed up with having it every day. We finish our books already in april every year anyway, so we manage to do enough work anyway, to be ahead of general curriculum. My work is on the schedule, so the kids know when I am not at home in the evening or daytime. The childrens newspaper route is also on the schedule, so we are able to make everything work out with the time we have available. Creative subjects are not on the schedule, as they are present in most things we do, and they infiltrate most other subjects. Project on thursday and friday is a new thing we are trying after the kids started a knowledge based youtube channel called : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2ECOh462jxQraolPZ53evw
At the middle of the schedule you see events that vary from week to week, like playdates, trips, hobbies, meetings and so on. The kids attend different sparetime activities outside the house like physics and chemistry, drama and ballet. They figure on the schedule on and off, when they have their seasons.
The weekend is also included, as we often go on educational trips together as a family in the weekend or visit friends and family.
Next week will be the winter holiday. Originally, when starting out home schooling, we did not separate school and spare time, but we have found that we have a need to do this. So we now have the same holidays as schools. The difference is just that we do not do the usual subjects, but mostly do trips and project work. This winter holiday we will work intensively on costumes, painting the barrel and go pick branches for our fastelavn celebrations. We are so looking forward!
Today we did an experiement with static electricity. So simple, but so effective! Our daughter rubbed the balloon with a piece of wool and created static electricity. The water was then pulled over by the balloon.
