Babel School in Taiwan

    A więc zaczynamy! Pierwszy warsztat drugiej edycji projektu Dziecko na Warsztat już dzisiaj!  Zapraszam.         Najbliższa okolica - legenda, opowieść, historyjka Może już wiecie, może jeszcze nie - mieszkamy na Tajwanie, małej wyspie (powierzchnia jej jest 10 razy mniejsza od powerzchni Polski) niedaleko Chin. Nasz dom jest w górach, w północnej części wyspy, blisko stolicy - Taipei. Oto widok z naszgo balkonu: Szukając opowieści o naszej okolicy odkurzyłam książkę kupioną kilka lat temu i odstawioną na półkę przez moje niezbyt lubiące język chiński dzieci.  Jest to książka opowiadająca o tym skąd się wzięły niektóre tajwańskie nazwy geograficzne. Ku mojemu zdumieniu i radości Zosia (17) bez oporów przeczytała na głos kilka interesujących nas opowieści. Jaś (12) streścił mi je po polsku, a ja wstukałam w komputer. I tak powstał nasz pierwszy warsztat: Czy jesteście ciekawi dlaczego miejscowość, ...

Even though summer vacation is over and everybody is back in school ... or home school, my today's post will still be about summer camps and a ... sculpture museum Juming Museum 朱銘美術館 is one of our family's favourite museums in Taiwan. It's located in the northern part of the island, in the mountains just off the coastal town of Jinshan 金山. It's a really big outdoor sculpture museum. Most of the works are by a famous Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming 朱銘 . For the past few years the museum has been organising summer camps for kids. Zosia went to 3 camps and now Jas has been to three camps as well. Jaś wrote about the 2013 Juming summer camp on his blog, please read his My summer camps and about this year's camp My last Juming camp . For some unknown to us reason there was no camp in 2012, but you can watch the last day of 2011 camp in a video Zosia made (see how cute Jaś was back then): There is one more video Zosia made about this museum (yes, we go ther...

Słyszeliście kiedyś o longan?  Co to jest i jak się to je? Nie wiecie?  To zapraszam na kolejne owocowe video Zosi! Smacznego!

Today, September 20th, was the Playing for Change Day , meaning a day when musicians and music lovers from different corners of the world get together in all kinds of places and ... make noise :-)  Everybody attending could make a donation for a good cause.  And what was the cause? To raise money for instruments and musical instruction for disadvantaged kids all over the world. Thanks to some friends we were able to get involved in this event.  Today was the first time for Jaś to perform on saxophone in front of the audience. Jaś played two pieces - "Take the "A" Train" by Duke Ellington and "Girl from Ipanema" by Antônio Carlos Jobim.  His performance was great! I am really proud of him! Jaś has also played with his friend, Owen. Some time ago they formed OJ Band and this was their first gig. They also played two pieces -  周杰倫【不能說的祕密】 "Secret" by Jay Chou and "Whistle" by Flo Rida. Great gig Boy...

Having a great teacher, like Adion Chen is a blessing.  Jaś enjoys his weekly science class and is not very happy when he has to miss one.  Each week Adion talks about different things - one time he can be explaining how a toilet works, another how a Maglev train lavitates above the tracks or how a Mars rover works.  Each lesson is supported with a slide/video presentation and a DIY session. Kids get their hands on making model buildings, vehicles and other things. Each week Jaś comes back home with some kind of a construction that he has made. (Unfortunately not all of them survive the long journey home.) The lessons take place in a classroom provided by another homeschooling family on the other side of town. Getting there takes about an hour, but it's well worth it.  Since starting the classes in March this year Jaś has learned a great deal about how things around us work and ... made some really good friends. I have to thank Jenny for finding ...

Kolejny egzotyczny owoc, który jest bardzo popularny na Tajwanie to ... pitaja. Szczerze powiedziawszy dopiero w dniu filmowania dowiedziałam się jak się ten owoc nazywa po polsku. W naszej rodzinie zawsze używamy chińskiej nazwy, która jest dużo bardziej ... poetycka, bo w tłumaczeniu oznacza "smoczy owoc". Zapraszam na instruktaż obierania pitai (czy pitaji?): Niestety nie miałam w domu pitai o fioletowym miąższu, która jest według mnie bardziej soczysta i słodka, ale też dużo mniejsza (a może dlatego jest mniejsza, że ta którą dostajemy rośnie u mojego teścia na dachu i jest w pełni "organiczna"?). Znalazłam zdjęcie już obranej fioletowej pitai, spójrzcie jaki ma niesamowity kolor!

(Wersja polska u dołu strony.) I've always had problems with "left" and "right". In Chinese I've got the hang of it not that long ago. Now time has come to teach prepositions to Ania. How do I do it? Poor Ania is learning prepositions in 3 languages at the same time and I must say, she is doing quite well. Take a look at the small poster I've made for her: To reinforce the prepositions we also made a picture on which Ania can see many different objects in different relation to each other. This is the finished picture. Now we can ask questions like: Where is the cat? It's on the fence. Where are the clouds? They are above the house. Where is the little girl? She's in front of the house. etc. Do you have any interesting ideas on how to teach prepositions and directions to children? Należę do tych osób, które często mylą stronę prawą z lewą. Po chińsku dopiero niedawno przestałam mieć z tym problem (zarówno w piśmie j...

Zgodnie z obietnicą zapraszam na kolejne owocowe video Zosi. Tym razem będzie mowa o ... japońskich bananach - co to takiego, jak wyglądają i jak smakują? Jeśli ktoś nie widział poprzedniego video o mango to zapraszam TUTAJ . A następnym owocem, który zaprezentujemy będzie pitaja.

Some time ago I came across a really nice floor puzzle - Alphabet Train Puzzle. Ania liked the puzzle right from the start, but beacause she was not familiar with the order of the letters in the alphabet it was taking her a lot of time to complete it and sometimes she would loose interest half way through. After she has learned most of the letters it became much easier for Ania to put all the pieces together. After a while I added "an extention" to this simple put-the-puzzle-together game. Ania was suppose to match the letter cards to the letters on the train. The puzzle not only helped Ania in learning the order of the letters in the alphabet, but it also helped her to learn the names of the animals on the puzzle. As you can see it's not that difficult to turn a simple game (or in this case a puzzle) into a teaching material. :-)

Jakiś czas temu zaproponowałam Zosi by zrobiła kilka krótkich filmików o tym jak się kroi lub je różne egzotyczne owoce. Na Tajwanie mamy okazję rozkoszować się przepysznymi i w miarę tanimi owocami, o których w Polsce niewiele ludzi słyszało lub je próbowało. Pierwszy filmik jest o ... zwykłym mango. Czy wiesz jak je kroić? Czy wiesz, że są różne rodzaje mango? Czy wiesz, że mango jest pełne witaminy C? Smacznego i ... na zdrowie! Kolejne owocowe video będzie o ... japońskich bananach.

Zosia loves trying new things. She would probably go diving with sharks, jump with a parachute and go bungee jumping from a bridge if there was someone to take her to do all those things. Her Parents and brother are not that adventurous so there is no chance of her ever going with us to experience the thrills of living on edge. But ... there is Perry! He will show her how to do crazy things in a safe way. Thank you Perry. For those who are interested - this place is was in 新北市, it got closed due to safety issues. New venue (hopefully safer and with A/C) will open soon in Taipei close to 雙連. How far do you let your kids go? A na ile Ty pozwalasz dzieciom?