Children learn new words best if they are presented to them in many different contexts. In the Sans Sproget courses, you learn language while gaining concrete experiences. In Sans Sproget, we work with a teaching method that makes the language more alive for the children by focusing on the sensory aspects of language acquisition. We must therefore touch, do, taste, see, hear, smell and move with the language in order to have more “hooks to hang the language on”.

The language of the senses is an offer and a learning material that can be used in language stimulating work targeted at children in daycare and the smallest classes of schools. The material is structured as 12 courses, which are basically linked to a museum visit.

The Sans language has been created on the basis of a co-creative process over 2 years between Frederikssund Museum, Willumsens Museum, Frederikssund Libraries and Frederikssund Municipality (UBK, schools and day care). Therefore, material has also been prepared that is linked to the cultural history field at Frederikssund Museum.

Cultural Paths – sense with us is an initiative that means that all 4 and 5 year olds in the municipality's daycare center meet local cultural institutions in a program that has been developed in collaboration between children's homes and cultural institutions.

Cultural Paths started in 2014 as a two-year development project funded by the Education Committee's quality pool. Today, it is a permanent initiative, funded via a pool based on a payment per child, and which ensures that children are introduced to the world of literature, music, visual arts and cultural heritage.

The course of the cultural trails

In the original version, the cultural trails were targeted at four-year-olds, but time showed that it was too much in one year and the courses are therefore distributed so that the four-year-olds come to the Library and are visited by the music school's Music Patrol. The five-year-olds visit Færgegården and Willumsens Museum.

In the original version, nature was also included as a sequence. However, this is no longer included, but work is underway to re-integrate it in a new format.

At the library

At the library, the four-year-olds have to help find letters. There has been a letter thief. Fortunately, the letters are hidden between the books – except for one!! After the hunt for letters, an excerpt from The Letter Thief is read, where the letter A has been stolen. Some funny words come out of that.

In addition to the course, the children will meet their local library and perhaps gain the courage to ask the librarians for advice the next time they visit.

The Music Patrol

The music patrol consists of three professional musicians, who, with double bass, flute and violin, take children and adults on playful and musical adventures. In addition to classic children's songs such as Ole's new car, The Ladybug is Ever Happy, etc., the 4-year-olds are introduced to classical pieces by Bach, Mozart and others.

The music patrol visits the orphanages three Tuesdays in a row.

Frederikssund Museum Ferry Yard

At Færgegården, the five-year-olds will go on a time journey that takes them back to ancient times. They will play through life in a hunter-gatherer society, where they shoot with bows and arrows and gather food in nature. They will also learn about what archaeology can tell us – and how much knowledge something like an ordinary trash can can give us.

Willumsen's Museum

At Willumsens Museum, five-year-olds will try their hand at the world of visual arts as well as sculpture. The children will visit the museum twice, where they will tour the museum and become acquainted with JF Willumsen's works and their uniqueness. There will be dialogue and various exercises linked to the different works, and during the two visits there will be concrete workshops with paint in their hands and on the large canvas set up in the garden.

Before-during-after

What the four courses have in common is that they have been developed in collaboration between the cultural mediators and the pedagogical staff. The purpose of this method is that the courses remain relevant and that they make sense in the day care center's everyday life - both before and after the course. The courses have therefore also been developed and designed in conjunction with the pedagogical curricula, which form the basis for the pedagogical work in the children's homes.

All courses involve preparation and various ideas for how to continue the course at home in the children's home. And many children's homes have gradually developed their own practices and perhaps even traditions associated with the visits.

Background

The background for Cultural Paths was a workshop in 2014, which showed that the orphanages' use of local cultural institutions was somewhat random, that a common thread was missing, and that the cultural institutions had a great desire to reach out to the orphanages, but did not quite know how.

This, together with a grant from the Education Committee, was the start of 2 years of ongoing development with co-creation as a methodological approach.

The two years of close collaboration did not mean that the project was completed, but rather that a good foundation had been created and a shared desire to continue collaborating and keep the momentum going.

That's why the project became the permanent initiative it is today. And what keeps it going is the continued development and ongoing adjustment that is necessary to keep the co-creative spirit alive.

The dogmas of the cultural paths

In the early days, the following dogmas were developed, and they are still the ones on which the Cultural Paths are based:

• All children must meet local cultural and natural institutions and actively discover and experience: music, visual arts, cultural history, nature and literature.
• A structured offer must be established for daycare facilities – and there must be a common thread between the offers the children receive.
• Increased professional exchange and knowledge sharing between pedagogical and cultural and natural science staff with a focus on the educational process.
• The activities must be anchored by working with a before-during-after structure, which ensures interaction between cultural and nature institutions and children's homes.
• Different learning spaces must be experimented with in children's homes and cultural and nature institutions, and they must interact with the pedagogical curricula.
• The children are involved and their ability to translate visual, auditory and cultural impressions and expressions is strengthened through active processes where the children are participants and are met and challenged in their universe of meaning.