Practical Chemistry in the kitchen

Yesterday, my daughter and I prepared a sweet bakery at home. This is how it went!

Feeling the texture of the sugar is funny

I enjoy baking, so that is something I would like to share with my children. Both of them really like to bake, even though they do not want to eat everything I make. Yesterday, my daughter and I, had the idea that we should bake something. It was a long time ago. We did not have anything at home, nothing sweet at least. We ususally only buy chocolate sometimes if the urge is to deep, but cakes are something rare here in Tunisia. You do not find cakes here like in Sweden. For instance, you can find croissant and "mille-feuilles" with a nice sweet sugary paste inside. But for me, the swedish cookies are so much better in taste and consistency. 

Everybody in my family have been tasting everything I do and most of it they enjoy. In the afternoon, after asr until maghrib, we all feel a need for something sweet. That is when I serve them the cookies and the goodies. 


My daughter is very keen on learning new things. She listens carefully and precipite always with gentle hands. That is good. You can judge a lot of future characteristics by observing your kids at home and how they react and handle with challenges. Some of them whine, some of them are patient. If they are not patient, that is something you have to talk about right now. Not waiting until later. It takes years to change a habit, and it is always much easier to change when you are a child than an adult. 

After pouring the mix into the bowl you have to whisk.
That is the fun part. 

Bakery teaches the child how to move their hands and control their eyes. It is quite difficult to do something at the beginning. The hand is stadfastier after it has been trained. This is good if you want to become a doctor and chirurgien. It also help the kids to write better. Baking is also good if you want to teach mathematics. There are halv a cup of sugar. How much is it? This helps the kid think in whole and half. They also learn the measurement with dl and l. If you are talking about the ingredients you can also put it in a bigger perspective, talking about where it comes from, and the cycle of grain, wheat, eating and going back. 

You will also talk about new words like stirring and how you stir to get the paste white and fluffy. 

A gentle caress of the chocolatepaste -
and then into the owen. 

The best part is that you also learn the child to enjoy and share the good parts of life, with a little celebration, when succeeding. You do not have to run through life, chasing all the time. You can also sit down and reflect on the best things in life: Your children. And that is also something you should advice your children to have when getting older, because most of the grown-ups are enjoying their children, not their career, when they are getting older. 

To proudly present the result!

I teach my kids my languages

One of my favourite teaching method is the "real-life". We are building our house in Tunisia and I use this opportunity to talk, teach and learn. It is not only my kids who are learning new things, even I do. Because I am the head of charge of this I am responsible and have to know everything about how to build a house, so that I can get what I want at the end. At the same time we, me and my daughter play in the house, pretending that we already live there. We sleep, cook, eat and go to the bathroom to wash up. We even watch pretending television, sitting on bricks. During this time I use new words that my daughter, mostly, do not understand in Swedish. She gets really upset and tells me over and over again: "Use the words that I know". I know that it is sometimes really frustratring to learn a language, and if I want my mothertounge to be complete for both of my children I have to use it in many ways. It is not acceptable that they only learn some basic words, not for me anyway. Language is really important for preparing my kids for the future. 







Mobilt Bredband Guiden

Physical activity in Tunisia

When I moved here to Tunisia, I search for a long time to find an activity thay fit my children. We found karate, gymnastics, soccer and swimming. We tried karate for a week, but they were so harsh with the children that I wanted my money back. The gymnastics, as seen above, is full of girls. Every boy that attend these classes are so few that they do not feel comfortable. My daughter however loves to go to the gymnastics every week. She can't attend all three classes but at least she go once a week. She pays 15 TND every month (about 7 Euros or 9 $) and she is happy. 


They both like to swim, and not far from this place in Marsa you can find the swimming bath of Oussama Mellouli (أسامة الملولي), champion olympique et world champion of 1 500 meters freestyle in Beijing, China in 2008 and in Rome in 2009. Every time we enter the big house we see a picture of him swimming. The teachers there are very good, if not excellent. They are amongst the best I have seen, teaching children how to swim and the children advance very quickly. My two kids are already in the second group after only six months. 

My learning kids and their friends

Hi! 

My son is to the right with his friend and second cousin to the left

These are my kids and their friends!  My children are eight years old and five years old, soon six. They moved with me from Sweden to Tunisia in august 2011. Their father is living in Sweden. As I am very concerned with their future I teach them daily about life in many aspects. The first thing is about school: mathematics, languages, science. The second thing that I try to teach them is about how to behaive in life and why. So why am I writing? Just to share some of my ideas with you. They attend school every day, six times a week and they are also active in some sports. I teach them when I find some time. 

My daughter is to the right. Her friend and second cousin is to the left.