Individual learning together

Many people ask us what it looks like when we do individual learning together at the table. Well, here it is.

In the classical subjects such as Danish, Math, English and German, our kids follow each their own level of learning.

I teach these subjects individually, by laying out the books on our weekly schedule on the table the night before. Each pupil get a stack of books by their seat to complete a certain amount of work in, the next day.

I go through the work to be done, with them, one by one. Then they work independently and can ask for help, when they get stuck.

The music in the background is not background music edited onto the movie later, but was played while we worked. We often chose to listen to music while we work, if everyone agree to the chosen music.

We all help each other and respect when someone finds something difficult.

On our current schedule (it often changes), we spend around 1-3 hours a day on these subjects 3 days of the week. Our goal is to complete the books we use and the additional tests, by 1st of April each year. We have reached our goal every year.

How do we learn English?

Well, how don’t we? English is the second language in Denmark for most people. It is all around us. When our youngest child was 2 years old, he would repeat English sentences from youtube child educational movies, he was watching. He learned to count to 10 in English before he learned to count to 10 in Danish. One of the parents in this family has lived for a long period of time in England and gotten used to dreaming in English. So English is used a lot in this family and seen as an opening to so many educational means on the internet and real life people.

We do English in the traditional manner around the table every week, with grammar books and reading aloud English. But we also do English in so many other ways, like our Chinese books are in English, many movies we watch only have English language or subtitles (yes, we watch weird, low budget, niche culture and our all time favorite – MUSICALS!). We love to read Roald Dahl, Dr. Seuss, Calvin and Hobbes, Hans Christian Andersen and Donald Duck in English.

On the picture you see our oldest daughter visiting her dream Book Store Foyles in London on Charing Cross Road. Foyles has four miles (6.5km) of shelves, and more than 200.000 book titles. Field trips are always also a main part of our Home School. We do as many as we can afford.