Temporary Homeschooling or Unschooling
This is truly a dreamy experience and is exceeding my expectations for our sabbatical year.
Spending this time together as a family in a foreign country engages the senses & brings into focus what our family has deemed most important in life: quality time, connection, exploring & learning with an open heart and mind.
Currently the kids are not in a traditional school. Our plan is to enroll them into a public school after the holidays. We still have a couple more trips planned & we don't want them to have a disrupted school schedule once they begin. Thankfully they are fairly motivate to learn, interested in independent studies, and happy to have their parents teach them random science, history and math lessons throughout the day. If our principal motivation for this trip wasn't learning Spanish, I don't think I would enroll them into school this year. I am finding that homeschooling, or unschooling, is quite a fabulous mode for creative learning. I noticed that both of my children lost some of their creative mind when they entered elementary school. It's fun to give them ample time to create and make whatever their hearts desire. Currently they are cutting out cardboard people and making clothes (labeled in Spanish) to dress their people.
A few other things the kids are learning:
Science museums in Spain are superb & uncensored.
The Granada Science Museum is a forever favorite of ours-
the kids and I spent 8 hours there!
the kids and I spent 8 hours there!
We watched a beautiful video of a vaginal birth in the human body exhibit, and learned how female and male femurs differ.
Music, sweet music.
They had a huge installation with almost every instrument every created in human history, and a map indicating where it originated. If there wasn't a physical model of the instrument on display, you could see a digital picture of the instrument. The best part was you could listen to a sound bite of someone playing the instrument.
The music display even has person handcrafting a guitar!
I couldn't get them to leave the typewriters!
Staring contest with Darwin.
Gears and levers - also impossible to get them to leave this exhibit. Thankfully Spain does things right- they have a cafe next to this outdoor space so I got a coffee and enjoyed the scene.
We watched mariposas hatch, dry off an excess meconium and take it's inaugural flight.
Learning to save money, buy foods and count Euros is a daily task.
The kids often to go the panaderia and buy bread for the day.
P.E. is always happening with these two
Learning how metal conducts heat on an uncommonly chilly day in Sevilla.
Taking Risks, an IB trait at their school in Boise.
Cecilia just gathered courage to walk back stage and congratulate the Flamenco dancers using newly learned Spanish words.
Working on will power
Kinda like the marshmallow challenge, I guess.
The kids harvested cotton & found the texture fascinating.
Cecilia even hand spun thread for book binding.
More foraging & harvesting around town.
Posing with some of the greatest minds.
Andalusia is known for it's beautiful horses.
We thought we were just going to a horse show, and we were surprised to get a bonus horse anatomy + artificial insemination class.
Here is the room where it happens.
Artificial insemination.
When we walked in, our guide said "I will show you the artificial vagina which we use to stimulate the male horse and extract semen." To which Atticus jumped in my arms and said "Where, where is the vagina?" He was disappointed when the guide pulled this silicone tube out of the cupboard.
I am still amazed with the whole idea of artificially inseminating a horse!
Science and math at it's finest.
Learning how salt is processed was a highlight for the kiddos.
Ancient fishing ruins were a great place for marine exploration.
Learning about (and sighting) all 5 of dolphin species that live in the Mediterranean + 4 Sperm whales was a fabulous experience.
Learning about pollution, petroleum, and plastics was not so cool, but important.
These kids are learning a lot about how the world works, and how capitalism can be a great thing & a horrible thing at the same time. They are learning about the human condition, and if not kept in check can be awful greedy and complacent.
Here is some interesting information on the cargo shipping industry;
Spain is a great place for ornithology lessons.
One lesson I found to be super unorthodoxy, and it made me uncomfortable.
However, when you come upon a guy hidden behind a wall near a large cathedral overlooking the city, and he is loving on his raptor collection (?),
it just seemed right to pay him some money and let the kids hold their favorite raptor.
Spanish School for the whole family. The kids loved that we all went to school together & got to meet in the courtyard for a snack break together.
The Moorish architecture has kept us all in awe.
Card games tops the list of educational fun!
We had an important discussion about racism after noticing that these Christian statues resemble KKK uniforms.
These kids are getting lots of baking & cooking practice, and thankfully loving it!
And of course, dozens of history lessons while wandering the streets or passing time in a museum.
The Kindle (sans computer apps) has been super handy to work on Atticus's ever increasing reading skills & for Cecilia to steal away and indulge in her favorite hobby.
If all else fails, the kids are learning a couple successful techniques to be a good busker
Tell me more about the difference in the femur, I am aware of the pelvic difference but not the femur!? Love love, Renae
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