LK20 at home: how many curriculum goals did you hit yesterday?

LK20, the curriculum your child follows at Norwegian schools, was in your kitchen last night while you stirred the porridge, and neither of you noticed. Many parents picture worksheets when they hear "LK20 at home". The competence goals in the curriculum describe actions: measure, sort, share, ask, explain. They already happen in your home every week. The question is how many times they did yesterday without you seeing it.

What is LK20 in practice at home?

LK20 in practice at home means recognising the moments where your child is already doing what the curriculum asks, and stretching them one question further. LK20 is the curriculum Norwegian schools have followed since autumn 2020. Its competence goals say what pupils should be able to do after certain years, and many of them point straight home: solve problems from everyday life after Year 2, form hypotheses after Year 4, handle everyday fractions after Year 5.

Here is the turn most parents do not expect: you do not need to do anything extra to hit the curriculum, because you already do. When the lid on the pot started to dance and your eight-year-old asked why, that was natural science after Year 4, almost word for word. The difference between a family that works with the curriculum and one that does not is whether they know which moments count, so they can pause there one second longer. That is the same idea we explored in What is deep learning in LK20, and what does it look like at home?, and it is the heart of STEAM learning for kids: start with something the child can touch.

Why does this matter for children?

A competence goal about units is a sentence in a document. A decilitre of flour the child measured out is an experience, and when the two meet, the curriculum becomes something the child owns. The curriculum also asks, in mathematics from Year 4 onwards, that children explain their reasoning, and a child who says out loud why the lid dances is practising exactly that, even when the answer is wrong. The five basic skills we found on the weekly plan in Basic skills in LK20: where are they on the timetable? sit as a layer over all of it.

Four everyday moments that are already curriculum

Together these four situations hit ten competence goals from mathematics and natural science.

1. The shopping list. "We have two litres of milk and need four by Saturday. How many do we buy?" That is addition from everyday life, Year 2. "Grams or kilos for the potatoes?" That is choosing and justifying a unit, Year 3. Sketching how they thought is modelling an everyday situation, Year 4. One question further: "If we may only buy five items, which do we pick, and why?"

2. The dinner that boils over. The lid rattles, steam pushes out at the rim, and the child asks why the lid dances. That question is natural science after Year 4: wonder, ask, form hypotheses. The answer is temperature and energy: steam takes up far more space than the water it came from, so it needs somewhere to go. Older children meet this as the particle model after Year 7. One question further: "What happens to the lid if we turn the heat down a little without taking it off?"

3. The laundry. Dark, light, wool that cannot take heat. Sorting the basket is natural science after Year 2: describe observable properties and sort by them. A drop of detergent on a butter stain is Year 4: explore how substances change when mixed. One question further: "Why can we not wash the wool jumper as hot as the towels?"

4. Friday night pizza. Four people, eight slices: sharing division, Year 4. Then the neighbour drops in and you are five: fractions from everyday life, Year 5, and harder than it looks. One question further: "If everyone should get the same amount, how many pieces do we cut each leftover slice into?"

Try it at home: One question further

Suitable for ages 6 to 13. You need a note on the fridge, four ordinary situations and time to wait for the answer.

1. Hang a note on the fridge with four lines: shopping, dinner, laundry, supper.
2. Pick one situation a day and let your child own a small part of it: writing, measuring, sorting or sharing.
3. Once they are busy, ask one question that starts with "what do you think happens if".
4. Wait. Do not correct the answer. Ask instead: "How did you think about that?"
5. Write one word on the note about what your child discovered.
6. On Sunday, read the note together and let the child pick which situation to repeat next week.

An adult handles the stove and the hot lid. Around day three the child starts asking the question before you do, and autumn is full of places to take the note next, as we show in Why autumn is the best laboratory your child can get.

What happens if you let your child write the whole shopping list alone, and then buy exactly what is on it?

Questions to wonder about

• Why does steam take up more space than water, when it is the same substance?
• If five people share three slices of pizza equally, is there more than one way to do it?
• How much of what your child knows did they learn somewhere nobody called it learning?

Every child is made of good atoms

Next time the lid starts to dance, let it dance a little longer. The curriculum stood at the stove yesterday, it is in the laundry basket tonight, and it arrives at the table on Friday with cheese pulling strings. Every child is made of good atoms, and every kitchen is a classroom already in use.

See how Good Atoms builds on this topic at goodatoms.com.