Come and stay with a homeschooling family in a small Aspromonte village, Canolo, Italy

Detalhes

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  Descrição

  Hello, we are Rocco, Becky, and four little girls aged 7, 5, 3 and nearly 1.
  We moved to Calabria 11 years ago from Germany where we both lived, though our origins are respectively Genovese and English, so we aren't the most typical inhabitants, we are also ourselves discovering the region bit by bit, and with the limits of having four little children to run around after!
  
  We (Rocco and Becky) are artists by profession but have put our practice on hold since becoming parents, in favour of the - difficult to achieve - art of parenting! After a short experience with the public preSchool system, two years ago we set up an indoor workshop space about a 10 minute walk from home, intended for handcraft and also as a kind of "schoolroom". Since september 2021 we are officially homeschooling our eldest daughter, and our second and sometimes third daughters join in too. Rocco usually spends the weekday mornings with them there during cold weather doing handcrafts and ''school work'', whilst Becky mostly takes care of the youngest one/s while doing domestic chores at home. On sunny days on the other hand we tend to be in the garden or in the surrounding woods.
  
  We are among very few families in our region to be directly involved in own children's instruction. That may be a further challenge for our family, therefore we look forward to get in touch with families or individuals interested in homeschooling.
  
  We are also interested in community and the idea of 'mutual help', so you are also welcome to contact us if you have one or more children. We love walking in the surrounding mountains and singing, both individually and as a choir, but it is not always that simple with little children in tow, so if there is something we can do all together...the more hands the better!
  
  Please note the mountain area has very limited cell-phone and internet signal, but we have got a landline at home, and a good internet connection.

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  Tipos de ajuda e oportunidades de aprendizado

  Projetos artísticos

  Prática de idiomas

  Ensino

  Cuidar de crianças/atividades criativas

  Ajuda a cuidar da casa
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  Oportunidades de intercâmbio cultural e aprendizado

  A traveller staying with us for a long or short period or time can enjoy good local food, the very friendly, simple people around us, the chance of seaside trips within easy driving distance. There are famous waterfalls very quaint towns and beautiful mountain areas within cycling distance.
  
  On our coasts are some of the most significant ancient greek archeological sites and museums, such as Lokri and Kaulon.
  
  If you'd like to learn Italian, this is a great place to get it, everyone including ourselves will make their best effort to speak to you in correct italian, while if you already speak italian, here you have the chance to experience the southern-calabrian dialect, which is distinguished among other southern-italian dialects by a lot of ancient-greek influences, as well as french, sicilian and old latin.

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  Projetos que envolvem crianças

  Este projeto pode envolver crianças. Para mais informações, veja aqui nossas diretrizes e dicas.

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  Ajuda

  We imagine we will benefit from having someone to spend time and share their knowledge/experience with the girls and sometimes help with the domestic chores.
  
  We just about manage to keep up with household chores and gardening but not much time/concentration is left over for other activities such as singing, studying and art. Becky also tries to meditate daily. The children, like most young children, can be quite a handful at times! So to have one or two people ready and willing to keep an eye on them for a couple of hours, supervising their games, taking them out, making them a snack, whatever is needed basically...would be a great relief to us.
  At other times we like to do activities together with our children and so it could be helpful if someone is willing to take over the household chores, cooking, washing-up, washing clothes or whatever needs doing from day to day.
  
  Every person is different and there is no fixed schedule: we would like to spend a few days just getting to know you before we can decide together how we can "collaborate".
  
  We try to give the children as much freedom as possible in their games in order to let them learn from their own mistakes, and take responsability for themselves and each other, so we allow them a certain freedom to roam freely in the immediate neighbourhood.
  
  We have some guidelines about food and screen time. We normally let our children watch a full-length animation and eat a few sweets on a sunday, with few exceptions. We see the surrounding families with children following a different approach regarding, on the one side processed food containing excessive sugar or salt and on the one side, devices such as TV, smartphone and tablet, perhaps to keep the children quiet after a sugar high! We try to Instruct our children to turn down or keep for later the sweets and snack food occasionally offered to them by neighbours and we would ask that our visitors bear this in mind too. We believe that what children really need is someone to tell them stories, they crave for stories, they love them, no matter if from a book, or from fantasy, or from real experience. We enjoy to be the story-tellers, but we can't do it all the time (in the past the role of tv was overtaken by an old member of the family, usually a grandparent). So the general rule is: as much story-telling and good food as possible to compensate for habits which should rather keep being exceptions!
  
  It is not necessary that you speak English or Italian with the children, as they´re at the age where they´ll absorb anything, including sign language!

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  Idiomas

  Idiomas
  Alemão: Fluente
  Inglês: Fluente
  Italiano: Fluente
  Czech: Intermediário
  Espanhol: Iniciante
  Francês: Iniciante
  Holandês: Iniciante

  Este anfitrião oferece intercâmbio de idiomas
  In our home we speak Italian, but Becky speaks English with the children. We prefer to speak Italian with volunteers who are willing to learn, we do not on the other hand like to practice English with volunteers unless it is a necessity (if you only speak english and don't speak any italian yet). If you are very keen on learning english, perhaps we could agree on a 50-50 time share, so that we can also learn/practice your language.
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  Acomodação

  We have recently moved to Canolo Nuova, a village in the Aspromonte Natural Park, about 12 km away from our home town. We can offer at the moment two different types of accomodation: - a guest room with access to kitchen and bathroom in a rented ground floor flat, which we use primarily as workshop- and school-room, and - a guest room, with access to guest bathroom, inside the house where we ourselves live. There is no problems of parking in the area.
  
  
  Our usual day rhythm: We get up around 7-8, the girls sometimes later. We tend to have a big breakfast and a light lunch around 13.00. Dinner before sunset. We eat a bit of everything, with preference for local products including rye bread, home-grown or foraged vegetables, fruits and nuts when possible, f not from the local market, a bit of meat or cheese now and then.
  We usually make our own yoghurt, kefir, preserved fruit, jam and liqueurs.
  
  The area is renowned for its dairy and sheep products: ricotta, provola, scamorza, etc, as well as cured and fresh black pork and beef. If you have specific habits concerning food, we are very glad to learn from them.

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  Algo mais...

  We live in a paradise on earth, where millions of people throughout history wished to migrate towards, but in the present time we are surrounded by people that cannot recognise neither the beauty of the nature and environment, nor the significant cultural heritage. An enthusiastic presence in that sense would help us to make our people aware of how lucky they are to live in this area.
  
  Our accomodation in Canolo Nuova is in the middle of the small town, within a few minutes walking distance from 2 different pizzeria/restaurants, a bar and a grocery-shop. From Canolo nuova there is a public transport bus, usually three times a day that drives to Siderno marina, on the east coast, and back. The real good thing is for visitors the chance of exploring the surrounding mountains, which, according to geologists, show an incredible variety of minerals (we don't yet know ourselves much about all this). The Climate in Canolo nuova is not the same as you may be used to experience in Southern Italy: we have stopped heating with fire only at the end of april, and even in summer chilly days can occur. on the other hand, during the summer we can enjoy a very good climate, inlike along the coast. It can be very hot during the central hours of the day if under the sun, but it is lovely during the nighttime.

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  Mais alguns detalhes

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    Acesso à internet

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    Acesso à internet limitado

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    Temos mascotes

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    Somos fumantes

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    Pode hospedar famílias

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  Pode hospedar nômades digitais

  We're connected with the internet through fibre.

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  Espaço para estacionar campervans

  There is space to park in the garden, on the public road in front of our house, and on the public road in front of the rented school-flat.

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  Pode aceitar animais

  Este anfitrião está aberto a aceitar viajantes com animais de estimação.

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  Quantos Workawayers pode acomodar?

  Mais de 2

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  Horas previstas

  Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week

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