Babel School in Taiwan

Yesterday a typhoon was passing by so it was raining cats and dogs. This kind of weather is perfect for playing board games. This was first time we played Rummikub, a really great game! Today the weather was so beautiful that we had to spend some time outdoors in our garden. Lately Jaś has been learning about light and mirrors. Today he has put together a periscope (from a science DIY kit).

During the past few days Jas has been studying volcanoes. First he learned how the Earth is build and how mountains are formed. We read books and studies pictures of volcanoes. He also used Montessori volcano 3-part-cards (with definitions) to learn the vocabulary. And now he is in process of making a small bilingual booklet about volcano. More about volcanoes HERE .

Jaś had Polish, Chinese and English today. In English for the past few days he's been doing crossword puzzles. For the first time he didn't want me to spell the words to him, but he wanted to look them up in the dictionary. Good job! He also had math - multiplication and division. I don't make him memorize the time tables, but let him think and come out with the answers in his own time and way. Jaś sometimes uses the division board to check his answers. And that's what he has done today. Zosia didn't do as much as Jaś ... She worked mainly on biology. Read chapters on skeleton and joints from "The Complete Book of Human Body" and wrote some worksheets from Sonlight. Later in the afternoon she had her last media class. Unfortunately she didn't like these classes very much, I guess they didn't turn out what she thought they would be.

Outside it's raining and temperature dropped to 20C. In Taiwan there is a very short window of time that we don't need to turn on neither AC nor heater. And the time is now! It's the most pleasant time of the year (of course when it's not raining). Not much is happening - just teaching and learning :-)    In the morning we read "Earthquakes" and discussed how we can prepare for them. After the March 11th disaster in Japan the subject of earthquakes is being brought up quite often in our house. Taiwan is one of those places that shakes and rattles almost all the time. In the afternoon we had visitors - Taiwanese cable news station, GTV 八大, came to interview Tim and film a news spot on homeschooling. If you would like to watch it just click on the video below:   While TV was here kids started putting a flag puzzle together:

After church, as always on Sunday, it was time for Zosia's dance scholarship class at Cloud Gate Dance Studio 雲門舞集舞蹈教室. While Zosia was busy stretching, jumping and dancing, Jaś was at home doing some crafts. This is what he made: First Jaś had to take all the parts out being careful not to loose anything and not to mix things up. The car is ready, all pieces in place. Jas decided to make the car more colorful by painting it with markers. A special treat before going to bed - Baba 爸爸 reading to Jaś!