Singing physics and chemistry for fun

My oldest daughter found these very motivating videos on youtube. How great to have youtube while home schooling. So many great people out there! She can sing a great part of it now. Learning can always be fun. You just have to be a little creative.

Great to dance to and think about. We look up the things we don’t understand and learn about new areas.


Let thy food be thy medicine.

In our homeschool food, eating food, making food and talking about food takes up a lot of our time. We are really compassionate about making food choices that benefit our bodies and minds. During the years, we have struggled with different health issues, and found that where the doctor could not help, or ordered medicine that was not a cure, but a symptom treatment, we would try in any way possible to improve our health the natural way. We have had so many great effects on our general health from making specific food choices, that has made the children aware of the effect of food on the body and mind.

An example of our lunch.

A really good book on the subject that we started out borrowing from the library, is “Spisebogen”. After reading this book and other studies, we made a project, where the children made a book where they cut out food from magazines and put into the book, with sections on all the different vitamins and minerals the body need and other vital needs, like water and fats.

This book has been a great inspiration to us.

We have read and talked about ways of choosing to eat. We have also tried many different diets and specifically The SCD diet has worked well for us (Specific Carbohydrate Diet). But we have also found that meat and fat in general does not sit wonderfully with us, so we mostly choose fish and lean chicken if we eat meat at all with a meal. We also eat glutenfree and have done for 6 years now. We don’t drink milk, as we can’t digest it. In general we try to choose foods that give as high nutrition as possible.

We hug vegetables.

We have found that what is the main way to keep healthy, is doing what you can to strengthen your immune system. So making sure you get as many vitamins, minerals and fats through your diet, as possible. But food is not enough. We also try to get fresh air and exercise every day. Positive thinking and trying to put yourself in other peoples shoes, is also a way to better health. We often read Louise Hay and she is a great inspiration to us. So is yoga and meditation.

Next episode on our youtube channel – now data about the Corn Snake

We have a channel on youtube called “Videnskanalen”.  We have for a long time been thinking about making a channel, with knowledge based videos, made by children.

The first movies are biology themes, but that may evolve over time. The first movie theme was about the Sea Cucumber. The next about Octopus. Now we have made one on the Corn Snake, as we have just bought one for our daughter.

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.

 

Living out history lessons – The Iron Age.

August, 2011 we went for the first time to live one week in Sagnlandet Lejre, as they did in the Iron Age. We had 3 children at that time, and they were 7, 4 and 3 years old. I thought it could be great history lessons, learning by living as they did then. The village was build to fit the time period 200 B.C. until 200 A.C.  When we first arrived we were given clothes as they would have been worn then. So we put all our present things away and lived with one outfit for the rest of the week. We also put away our phones and computers for a week.

There were 4 houses in the village and we were 4 families living together there in the village. We had no running water og electricity. We were given food to prepare every day, and everything had to be cooked over a fire or in an oven which took hours to heat up. We had no watches, so had to start estimating time in a new way.

We had a ritual area where we did a sacrifice while there, as they would have done in the iron age.

There was a lot of animals loose the area and the children got used to walk near them.

We had a  witch doctor who would walk around in the local area with us and teach us which plants could be eaten and we picked them and put them in our food.

More animals. Most of the animals they keep at Sagnlandet, are original breeds that can be traced back to the iron age. These are wild pigs.

We did yarn dying with natural colours, picked in the area. We dyed yarn from the local sheep. We then spun it and made belts.

Making belts.

We made sushi from salmon and then smoked the rest over the fire.

Lovely to spend your time watching the fire at night.

The small kids LOVED the outside toilet 🙂

The geese and the wasps pestered us quite a bit, but was also a part of the real life experience of the iron age. This holiday has meant a lot to our children. It but a lot of the things we do today in our life, into perspective. Brought out our grateful side for having running water, water closet, hot showers, a potato pealer and so on. When we talk about history now, they often say “is that before or after the iron age, mum?”. We actually repeated our trip to the iron age 2 years later. In 2017 we went there again, but then to their viking site, but more will follow later in a new post about that experience.

The Children made a movie about Octopuses

We have combined the children’s interest in making movies with their interest in biology. This is our second movie in our series of biology themes they have chosen. They have made the movie on their own. As a parent, I have only contributed with the advise on ideas and helped with the planning of their time spend on the project. The project didn’t really happen, until we put the project on our weekly schedule. They had to have a set time to work on it. Like an author, sometimes needs to set himself a set time where he works on a book. Then things started to happen.

Octopuses is an amazing category of sea animals. There are 800 different species, and they are split into 5 categories:

  1. Nautilus.
  2. 10- armed octopuses.
  3. 8-armed octopuses.
  4. Sepia octopuses.
  5. Vampire Octopus from hell.

Nautilus.

5 species. It has a shell. No ink. Can get up to 20 years old. Has 90 tentacles without suction cups. Found around Australia and in the Pacific ocean.

10-armed octopuses.

300 species. Spine of cartilage. Can swim very fast. More than half of them light in the dark. 13 species in Denmark. One of the 10-armed species is the kolos octopus. It is the largest octopus found. It can be up to 10 meters long and weigh 500 kg. It can put up quite a fight with sperm whales who likes to eat them. It has eyes the size of a football.

8-armed octopuses.

Spits poison. Can get through very small gaps. Very soft, apart from their beak. Can change colour and shape. Can let go of an arm and regrow it. Can get up to 5 years old. Very strong- can lift up to 33 kg. Clever brain.

Sepia octopuses.

120 species. The chameleon of the sea. Can change colour and shape. Has an inside shell. They are cannibals. Has 10 arms. Usually get 1-2 years old.

Vampire squid from hell.

Likes to be on its own. It has light cells, so it can choose where on the body it want to light. Around 28 cm long. Turns inside out, and shows some spikes it has on the inside. That makes it seem invisible. It shoots off blue slime which lights up. Lives at 1 km depth.

Pleurotus ostreatus – growing Oyster Mushrooms with the kids

We are making a biological experiment at the moment. We like to grow all sorts of things, sometimes with success other times with failure. We dance around when we have success and learn a lot with the failures.

At a Maker Space Event we went to, we made and bought a bag with a mixture for growing Oyster Mushrooms.

Maker Space CPH 2018-09-30.

Ready for darkness in 1 week in warm room 2018-10-01.

One week later we took the bag out of the dark box and hang it in our livingroom and after a few days this happened:

Day 1 of mushrooms appearing 2018-10-18.

Day 2 2018-10-19.

Day 4 2018-10-21.

Day 5 Our Oyster Mushrooms are huge! 2018-10-22.

Great way to see things grow with the kids! Now I have to eat them all, nobody else here likes them.

Nature is everything 2018-10-17

One thing we always seem to be in deficit with, is going to the forest and to the sea. You just can never do those things enough. It brings on tranquility and peace of mind. It makes you high on life and brings on so many questions about our Mother Earth. The seasons changing, the change in weather. The change in the surroundings. And it always gives you free exercise.

Photo from Hareskoven 2018-10-17.

Photo from Bagsværd sø 2018-10-17.

Often Home Schooling 4 children and trying to do your best all the time for everyone, can turn into just to high a speed. Then we go to the forest or sea and chill out and try to live life slowly and feel time in another way. Today we spend 5 hours in the forest just doing what ever came up. I had my knitting with me. My oldest daughter had her book of Survival with her, which had a peculiar collection of advice in many weird situations. They had a long role play where invisible dragons fought on the lake. We had lunch. They set up a play, which they acted out with me as audience. We did gymnastics and yoga together by the water. Some of us tipped our toes in the water and splashed a bit. We observed the leaves falling from the trees. But most of all, we talked and talked. Sometimes I think that home school really is about talking to your kids and listening to your kids. We spend just so much time doing just that every day. It is wonderful to get to know what goes on inside their heads.

The Medical Museion – The Body Collected

For a few years we have wanted to go to The Medical Museion. They have actual body parts in formaldehyde, you can see close up.

Biology and Chemistry is a great interest of our children, and they had so many questions to the guide.

We had pre-ordered a children friendly tour of the exhibition “The Body Collected”.

They have a large collection of bones affected by different illnesses.

We try to show our children all aspects of life, so that they do not grow up with tabus, shame or go around wondering about things, that they do not dare to ask us. They have become very good judges of what they are uncomfortable with and say:”I do not want to see that” and just go on.  It is healthy to learn to question “that is just how it is” when the doctor orders you antibiotica or other situations in life, where you do not think you have a choice.

 

 

 

 

 

After the tour, we went around in the museum on our own. The cellar had a very exiting exhibition “Min the Gut” where you could read about the importance of the stomachs bacteria flora and the research done during the past few hundred years.

There also was a Pill Machine where you could answer a line of emotional and dietary questions, to go to a machine where it would give you the right amount of medicine and guidelines to treat your ailments. It was a way to show you the combination of medical and holistic treatment.

On the other floor, just by the entrance, there was a game, where you could play roulette, gambling with your age. You could get good or bad body parts and we had a lot of fun. I managed to turn 101 years old, so I won.

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.