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Tag: Stromovka Park

Worldschoolers of Prague and Edward’s first birthday

We have been meeting up with the Worldschoolers of Prague during our first month here. Our friend Caroline is one of the organizers so that is how we knew that worldschoolers even exist. Below is a quote from their homepage about what the term worldschooler means and we think that it fits our family’s description well and how we think of “homeschooling”,  a word that doesn’t give the meaning of the term justice.

“Worldschooling is basically to learn from the world. The whole world is your classroom! We dont believe that learning occurs by being forced to stay inside of a classroom. We believe in natural learning, from the world around you, together as a family.

Worldschooling is a form of “home-schooling” but doesn´t often occur in the home. Worldschoolers can or cannot follow a curriculum. Worldschoolers can be many kinds from homeschoolers that follow curriculums to radical unschoolers. It is up to the families what they do.

Worldschoolers are often travelling families that travel for a longer or shorter time. They can also be families that don´t travel but are eager to explore the world from their homes.”

We have also celebrated Edward King’s first birthday and it is interesting how much has happened during a year. We came to Prague in August last year to assist the King family during the arrival of Edward. They had planned a home birth and we where there to take care of the older brothers if they decided that they didn’t want to be there during the birth. Everything went well and Ulrika even got to be the birth photographer capturing this special moment for the King family.

Being part of and experiencing the birth of Edward was especially precious to Ulrika, who before the birth of Edward was absolutely terrified of ever giving birth to a child. After this experience, Ulrika now feel totally calm and are not afraid anymore of the thought of giving birth. It has helped a lot for the coming birth of our child, which can happen any day now.


Vi har träffat “Worldschoolers” i Prag under vår första månad här. Vår vän Caroline är en av arrangörerna, så det är på den vägen vi lärt oss att “Worldschoolers” ens existerar. Nedan följer ett översatt citat från deras hemsida om vad begreppet “Worldschooler” betyder och vi tycker att det passar vår familjs beskrivning bra och hur vi tänker på “hemskolning”, ett ord som inte ger begreppet rättvisa.

“Världsskolare (Worldschoolers) är i princip att lära av världen. Hela världen är ditt klassrum! Vi tror inte att lärande sker genom att vara tvungen att stanna inne i ett klassrum. Vi tror på naturligt lärande, från världen runt omkring dig, tillsammans som en familj.

Världsskolning är en form av “hemskolning”, men det förekommer inte ofta i hemmet. Världsskolare kan både följa en viss läroplan eller göra det helt utan någon form av läroplan. Världsskolare kan vara många typer, från hemskolare som följer läroplaner till radikala “unschoolers”. Det är upp till familjerna vad de gör.

Världsskolare är ofta familjer som reser för en längre eller en kortare tid. De kan också vara familjer som inte reser, men är angelägna om att utforska världen från sina hem.”

Vi har också firat Edward Kings första födelsedag och det är intressant hur mycket som har hänt det senaste året. Vi kom till Prag i augusti förra året för att hjälpa Kingfamiljen vid ankomsten av Edward. De hade planerat en hemfödsel och vi var där för att ta hand om de äldre bröderna utifall de bestämde sig för att inte vilja vara där under födseln. Allt gick bra och Ulrika fick till och med agera förlossningsfotograf som fångade detta speciella ögonblick för familjen.

Att vara en del av och uppleva Edwards födelse var särskilt värdefullt för Ulrika, som före Edwards födelse var jätterädd för att någonsin föda ett barn. Efter denna erfarenhet känner Ulrika sig nu helt lugn och känner sig inte längre rädd inför tanken på att föda. Det har verkligen hjälpt oss mycket inför vårt barns kommande födelse, vilket kan hända vilken dag som helst nu.

Meeting up with a bunch of Worldschoolers for the first time. (Photo by: Caroline King)

Ulrika and our child got an examination by a possible future midwife, who had brought her own midwife equipment, during week 37 of pregnancy. (Photo by: Caroline King)

August has been incredible hot here in Prague so the meetings have mostly involved playing in water, here in Park Stromovka. (Photo by: Caroline King)

The worldschooler meet up at lake Džbán, a really kid-friendly facility where the adults pay an entrance fee (90 CZK) and the kids go in for free. (Photo by: Caroline King)

There are a lot of things to do here for both kids and adults.

They even have a small baby pool. (Photo by: Caroline King)

We have also been involved in science projects indoors – here separating oxygen and hydrogen by electrolysis with excited kids watching the tubes filling with gas.

Prague is a great place for worldschoolers. There are so much things you and your kids can do from Science and sports to arts and crafts. There are events and workshops happening all the time here in Prague, so it is just up to what your child is interested in.

Edward’s first birthday was coming up so we where invited to a small birthday picnic to celebrate that Edward has been around for one year. The place was going to be Park Stromovka, which is an awesome park to spend a day in. especially when you are in week 38 of pregnancy.

Caroline had prepared a birthday cake.

And Edward got a lot of help blowing out his candle from his older brothers Winston and Henry.

Edward also got help to open his birthday gifts.

A few friends came to celebrate Edward. Suzanna has experience giving birth at the hospital we finally chose and we met with them the last time we where here to get information about Rakovnik hospital. It helped us hearing about her experiences, which in the end convinced us to choose Rakonvik. It was nice meeting them again on Edward’s birthday picnic to be able to update them on how we have solved our birthing plans. Now it is just about waiting for our child to enter the world.

Back in Prague hanging out with the Kings

We were back in Prague for a special reason and we came here to stay for an unknown length of time, because we waited for a special person to join us. We love to spend time with our friends the King family, their travel and unschooling blog can be found here, and we realized that we’ve only known each other for two years, but it feels way longer. The first time we met each other was in Bali 2015, after we got in contact through the Swedish Bitcoin community on facebook, and we share the same values and thoughts about moral and ethics, so it is nice to hang out with them.   


Vi var tillbaka i Prag av en särskild anledning och vi kom hit på okänd tid eftersom vi väntade på att en speciell person skulle komma till oss. Vi gillar att tillbringa tid med våra vänner King-familjen, deras rese och unschoolingblogg finns här, och vi insåg att vi endast har känt varandra i två år, men att det känns som att vi känt varandra mycket längre. Första gången vi träffade varandra var i Bali år 2015, efter att vi kom i kontakt med varandra i den svenska Bitcoingruppen på Facebook. Vi delar samma värderingar och tankar om moral och etik, så det är trevligt att umgås med dem.

We were now back in Prague, hanging out and helping these guys! How many pregnant, almost 40-weeks, women do you see climbing around in a park?

We went here to take care of Winston and Henry when their little brother would decide to come out.

And to see cool stuff like the Výstaviště (the industrial palace) in Prague, which is an exhibition ground built in 1891 for the World’s fair exhibition.

Out on a walk in the Park Stromovka in the rain with Caroline and the boys in the first half of August.

Stromovka park!

The Czech Republic is not famous for its natural lakes, so Caroline and the boys took us to a nice outdoor pool during the hottest days in August.

Winston and Henry got hold of our hats and sunglasses!

Pontus is useful when you want to be an airplane.

Henry want to compare his tummy with mom, whose is bigger?

We found a child-size motorbike outside a restaurant, so the kids had to try it out.

Henry a.k.a Daredevil, driving with his eyes closed and hands in the air.

Pontus and I also explored Holešovice and surroundings, and found both a small harbor and an allotment garden. This part of Prague is really nice to explore by foot. More pictures can be found in the slideshow below.

 

We found a floating tiny house, built with a container, along the harbor! It looked really nice!

We also had a local pig walking around in the neighborhood with her owner #thingsyouseeinPrague

There are a lot of local pubs and restaurants here in Holešovice, this one stood out, but we didn’t try it.

The public transportation system in Prague is so easy to use. There are subways, trams, buses etc to get around here. There is even a small boat called P7 that you can take, which goes between Holešovice and Karlín.

The P7 boat that took us over the Vltava river. The island Štvanice can be seen in the background.

The King family had described for us how to find the tunnel under the Vítkov hill, and we found it! Now it was exploration time.

The tunnel goes straight through the hill and we wondered if this was some kind of bomb shelter during the wars.

We found the National Monument on top of Vitkov hill and it was an impressive building built between the world wars in honor of the Czechoslovak legionaries. It was then used to promote and glorify the Communist regime after the second world war ended. Since 2009, the building has been reconstructed to be a National memorial site.

We got a great view over Prague from Vitkov park. Below are more pictures from the park and Holešovice. We walked more than 10 km this day, so we got to see a lot of interesting architecture.

 

You’ll find a Vietnamese market in Holešovice where the Vietnamese community have their businesses. Social engineering during the communist years had Vietnam and Czechoslovakia to send people between each other, like a forced cultural exchange. We heard that most Czech people moved back to this part of the world after the communists were removed here, but the Vietnamese decided to stay, go figure! We love Vietnamese food so we loved going here to eat.

We hanged out and did a lot of things during these weeks, but most of the time we were just patiently waiting for the fifth member of the King family to join us. More about that later!

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