Babel School in Taiwan

To już ósma odsłona z cyklu "Dziecko na Warsztat". Tym razem będzie mowa o historii i temat ten potraktuję trochę ... historycznie. Niestety nie mieliśmy zaplanowanego żadnego projektu historycznego na ten miesiąc, przedstawię więc jak uczymy się historii na codzień, z jakich książek korzystamy i jakie osie czasu i drzewa genealogiczne tworzymy. Historia świata, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem historii Polski i Tajwanu, stanowi bardzo ważną część edukacji moich dzieci. Od najmłodszych lat przy okazji różnych świąt (np. 3 Maja, 11 Listopada) rozmawiamy z dziećmi o wydarzeniach historycznych. Staramy się również by dzieci rozmawiały z dziadkami o czasach ich dzieciństwa. Dzięki temu np. Jaś bardzo zainteresował się historią II Wojny Światowej - żaden film czy książka nie pobiją opowieści z pierwszej ręki. Dla naszych dzieci (i pewnie wielu czytelników tego bloga) czasy stanu wojennego w Polsce (i na Tajwanie) to też zamierzchła, ale jakże fascynująca, historia - niczego n

I must say I am very proud of my son.  He doesn't like doing big projects that last for ever and that he never knows when and if they are even going to be finished (that kind of projects are my daughter's speciality). Jaś likes one day things. Sometimes he works on a lapbook and it takes a bit longer, but then everything has to be prepared in advance - he will write 2-3 small booklets a day, everyday throughout the week, and then on the last day he will put everything together. That is the only way to do a lapbook with him. Jaś' biology textbook For the past few weeks he's been learning about cells. I wanted to do a lapbook with him, but ... with Easter holidays around, I didn't have time to to prepare it for him. And so he ended up making a wonderful poster of an animal cell. It took him just over 2 hours to finish it, which is really impressive as usually he drags his lessons forever. He didn't even need much help and nagging from me! I am really pr

Threading is another very popular activity in a Montessori classroom. Children can thread all kinds of things: wooden beads small beads Cheerios (or other circular cereal) pasta buttons They can also thread onto all kinds of things: wooden stick string shoelace pipe cleaner straw You can choose the material depending on the age and abilities of your child as well as what you have available at home. You may want to start with bigger wooden beads threaded onto wooden sticks and then move onto pasta threaded onto shoelace and later small beads onto a thin string. In the next posts I will present a few of the threading exercises that Ania has done in the past. Threading wooden beads Materials: wooden colored beads wooden sticks thick string or shoelace Purpose of this exercise is to develop: fine motor skills hand-eye coordination patience concentration       As an extension to this exercise you can ask the child to thread the beads by color o

A great exercise to strengthen little fingers and prepare them for later pen holding and writing is using clothespins. There are many ways a child can use them, I will show you three of them. I chose the nice wooden pins which are more appealing to the children than the large plastic ones. Using clothespins Materials: small wooden clothespins a box  You can use any kind of a small box, I used a transparent one. I keep the pins inside the box on the shelf instead of on a tray, this way the work takes up less of my precious space. The objective of this exercise is to pin the clothespins around the edges of the box. When a child gets enough practice with pinning the clothespins around the box, he can try pinning some small clothes to a cloth line. Materials: a string suspended between two rods (I used a thingy for hanging bananas :-) ) small pieces of material (I cut some colorful felt into the shape of T-shirt, pants, shorts and skirt) small clothe

Soccer is not a very popular sport in Taiwan. There are far more kids playing baseball and basketball than soccer. Jaś, having Polish blood in his veins, decided that he wants to play ... soccer. When he was small, kindergarten or first grade, he did kick the ball a few times, but that was just for fun, nothing serious. Now, in fifth grade he decided he wants to go back to the soccer field and try kicking again. It happened that two of his homeschooled friends are also playing soccer so it wasn't hard to decide which team to join. Jaś has just started his adventure with this sport, so far he loves it and says he wants to continue playing for years to come. We'll see ... Twice a year there are big matches organised in Taipei. The last championship took place last Saturday. And Jaś, although he has just joined the team, was asked to play too. He was very excited as this was his first big match. After playing against two other teams, Jaś' team won! 閃電精靈 go go go!

 One of favorite exercises both in the school I've worked and at home is  SETTING THE TABLE   Materials: a set of children's dishes   cup saucer   plate a set of children's silverware (in a silverware tray) teaspoon spoon fork knife teapot sugar bowl tray for the above materials card with the table setting drawn on it Of course the materials may vary depending on the things that you have available at home. I found that the best place to look for children's dishes and silverware is IKEA. Gradually the child will 'graduate' to using the 'adult' size dishes and silverware and setting the family table. At our house table setting is always left for the children and they always do a splendid job. Show the child how to place the dishes and silverware on the card. Instead of the card you may also use a photo of the layout. After the child is familiar with the layout you can remove the card and let him set the table without

I decided to continue the "Montessori Practical Life Exercises" series which I've started last year.  As a reminder, previous exercises included the following: Polishing silver   Using a dropper Opening and closing bottles and other containers Transferring water with a sponge Sorting colored beads Spooning pasta  Today let me present to you an exercise called Transferring beads with tweezers. Materials: small beads in a small container tweezers rubber soap pad tray The objective of this exercise is to transfer all the beads onto the soap pad using tweezers. This exercise helps to strengthen the muscles in the child's hand (needed in developing a proper pencil grasp) as squeezing the tweezers requires some strength. Transferring the beads requires also precise movement and helps in hand-eye coordination. Finished work