Tag: Art

Home School gathering with Children Christmas Market and Dakota Fire Pitt Project 2018-11-03

We like fire. All sorts of fire. As long as it is real old fashioned fire. We attended scouts for 5 years with the kids, in reflection, I think just to sit at a bonfire and stare into the flames. We love starring into a bonfire and feeling the warmth. No thoughts in our brains. It is relaxing. Meditative. It is so lovely simple and primitive. Still so fascinating and magic. A chemical reaction and pure energy.

When we suddenly realized that we could just make a bonfire in our garden, we stopped being scouts and continued the fire love in our garden. The smell is also wonderful. When you have made any kind of food over the fire or just sat next to a bonfire you smell wonderfully of bonfire. For many days. Your clothes keep the smell for weeks.

We have done a lot of cooking experiments over fire and other things too, but lets try to focus on the food things for now. Our favorite is pancakes and fried bacon.

Today we held a gathering for Home Schoolers in the celebration of Christmas. We had a market for the kids to sell their home made crafts and our oldest daughter had been given the job of selling and frying pancakes over the large bonfire. We held the event at a Nature Cottage owned by the borough. They have 2 large bonfire places.

Then my husband had been reading about how soldiers can make a Dakota Fire Pitt, which is a bonfire buried in the ground. The effectiveness of this fire is that you dig 2 holes next to each other and make an air canal between the two to make a ventilation duct. That reduces the smoke and visibility from afar of the bonfire. You can then get heat and cook food without being found by the enemy.

So today was the day and he made one. It turned out really fine and worked.

 

In remembrance of Jane

For 9 years we went to a playgroup in a Church. It was only intended to be for 2-6 year olds, but the group was managed by a very nice lady called Jane. When we started in the group our children fitted very well into that category, with a 5, 2 and 1 year old. Then they grew older. But Jane still made us feel welcome in the play group. She did not care much about age groups or rules generally. What mattered to her was the overall feeling in the group and if the children knew how to behave well towards each other. You would always get a loving hug and a truly personal concern and interest into your life from Jane. She was open and loving. Jane had not had an easy life before she came to the church. Many people had not treated her with the respect everybody deserves. But she had found her love and meaning in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. She gave that love on to us all.

As our youngest child turned 5 this year, we decided to stop in the play ground this year. As Jane was become more like a grandmother to our children than just a friend, we made plans with her to meet up with her and also for her to become a part of our home school network and arrangements.

But sadly, she died quite suddenly from cancer, during the summer break from the playground. We managed to meet her once at the hospice and we also attended her funeral. At the funeral they said that one of her sayings was:”Always stay honest in your heart”. I will never forget that. She was a person who gave so much. You felt understood and energized from her company. We will never forget her.

In the play ground there was a meeting once a week where we would start out sitting in a circle. Then all the children would get to choose a song from song books she had put together through the years, with songs the families had brought. She had a lot of toys that fitted the different songs. Then she would often bless us all. We also had a dice the children could throw, with blessings on. Then there would be an activity. It could be that she would tell a bible story that fitted that season of the year, or there could be a creative activity.

At the start of every year we had a paper we could write an activity on, that we would like to do during that year. Usually “look at a fish” would be put on it, as a popular activity. Every year Jane managed to find a new interesting sea creature to dissect, fry and then we would eat it.

Every year we would have a ceremony in the church at christmas, where Jane would make a christmas play with children from the local kindergarden. We would then every year receive some kind of angel figure, to remember Gods love for us.

Every year we would celebrate “Fastelavn” in the play group. Jane would put sweets in a brown paperbag the children had painted. Then the children got to hit the bag, one by one, until it broke. One year Jane had put oranges in the bag. They all were completely smashed up, so she didn’t repeat that treat 🙂

Easter. Usually spend with a bible story. Then Easter Egg hunt in the church.

We did a lot of creative activities in the play group. Often we would paint, sculpt, build things. On this picture we could paint on caps, shoppingbags or T-shirts.

Jane. We miss you and will never forget you.

Maker Space with glory to workmanship and reuse 2018-09-30

A very important part of learning, is to be exposed to different things. As a child, you do not know all the different possibilities there is in life. We try to expose our children to as many different areas of learning as possible. Then they will have a greater opportunity to choose for themselves what to engage in. To find out what interests them.

In the past few years there has come a lot of offers to children, regarding learning about electronics, which is more and more palatable. One of these offers is Maker Space Copenhagen. There the children can see a fusion of methods used in craftmanship fused with electronics.

On the picture above, the children could see a 3D printer and examples of what it could produce and how it worked.

On the picture is shown a selection of trash that the children could use to create new things with.

On the picture above, a dolls house was build out of cardboard and then some electronic gimmicks was applied to the house.

Often Maker Space also takes the environmentally outlook on how we consume. It is all about reusing.

At this Maker Space there also was a section on biological aspects of creating. You could for example make your own mushrooms growing kit and many other growth projects to learn about biology.

 

We love ballet

We love going to the Royal Ballet. 2018-09-27 we went to see a modern version of Bizets “Carmen”. We have also seen “The Nutcracker”, “Giselle”, “Ballet de Luxe”, “Swan Lake” and 2018-12-01 “Alice in Wonderland” there. Our children prefer the classical versions of the ballets. We have a child that have been dancing ballet for 4 years now and is a real ballet enthusiast. She also attends a drama School. Once a year, she performs at the Royal Theatre in a show for a selection of ballet schools. The other children like the beauty of the old Royal Theatre and the solemn atmosphere there. When you are a Home Schooler, you can get school tickets, which makes it possible for us to afford going to many ballets a year.

Alice in Wonderland 2018-12-01 Royal Theatre, Denmark.

Carmen 2018-09-27 Royal Theatre, Denmark.

Ballet de Luxe 2018-05-03 Royal Theatre, Denmark.

The Ballet Schools annual Show, at the Royal Theatre 2018.

Cinderella, at the Royal Theatre 2019.

Seasonal activities – Chestnuts

We love the changing seasons. The marking points of the year. When we see the ripe apples on the trees, Christmas, Easter and so on. One of these markings is when we can collect chestnuts that has fallen from the trees.

We are so lucky. We live right by a whole street that has Horse Chestnut trees.

Horse chestnut was introduced in Denmark in 1721. It often can be found near roads, parks or in private gardens. It can be around 30 meters tall and has large leaves with 5-7 leaves on each that look like fingers.

When regarding food, the term “horse” used in a name refers to that it is inedible. Animals do eat them, though. An interesting use, is that you can make soap out of horse chestnuts.

We usually make animals out of them and seasonal decorations. For many years, we have struggled to make holes in them with toothpicks, pins, an awl or other sharp things. This year our children were old enough to learn how to use a drilling machine and has really become experts.

And the madness continues 🙂

Circus performance 30th of June 2018.

30th of June 2018 we held a Cirkus and Market in our garden. It all started with us talking about making a play in the garden, as we had already done twice. Then one of my daughters said:”I would rather make a Cirkus and a Market, this year”. So I thought about it, and could not see anything wrong with that idea. All the other children also thought it could be fun to try. So we started reading books about cirkus and creative books about the subject. So we sat down and wrote all the acts and stalls we would like to have and quickly saw that we did not have enough artist. So we announced our idea in our Homeschooling network and 2 families wanted to take part. So we made a plan for how and when we would meet and practice and make props, costumes and so on. So for 3 months we met up every second tuesday for 3 hour and worked on the show. It was hard work and great fun. It was also challenging, as in when you throw yourself into a new unexplored area, you find out many new things about yourself. We also decided to charge an entrance fee. It should be symbolic, but an amount the children could use to calculate with. It was decided that the children should split the entrance fee, so they would feel more part of the project. When the show date arrived, it all went very well and we had an audience of nearly 50 people.