Babel School in Taiwan

Moja najstarsza córka jest osobą bardzo zajętą, ma mnóstwo zainteresowań, z których najwięcej czasu zajmuje jej edytowanie filmów, zarówno tych, które sama nagrywa, jak i filmów na zlecenie (na edytowaniu których zarabia).  Robi również prezentacje na Prezi na zlecenie. Ponadto kilka razy w tygodniu ma castingi do reklam, pokazów mody, czy innych zdjęć modelingowych.  Przeważnie jeden dzień w tygodniu pracuje, czyli ma zdjęcia reklamowe, do katalogu czy też jakiś pokaz. Raz w tygodniu (czasami dwa razy) chodzi również na zajęcia na uniwersytecie. Jak więc widzicie niewiele czasu poświęca na ... naukę w domu. Jednak od czasu do czasu udaje mi się "zrobić lekcje" z Zosią.W zeszłym tygodniu czytałyśmy o architekturze gotyckiej, a w szczególności o katedrach gotyckich. Oto prezentacja, którą zrobiła: W tym tygodniu zajmujemy się "Wizerunkiem Maryi w sztuce i teologii średniowiecza". Będziemy też czytać i omawiać "Bogurodzicę" jak i wiersz Mirona B...

I don't like giving presentations or interviews, but from time to time I am asked to do so. If the person asks nicely then I can not decline and I end up getting all stressed and worried that I won't do it well and I won't be understood (remember I have to give presentations in Chinese). Yesterday was one of those days that I had to stand in front of a group of kids and adults and talk. The audience were the kids attending a 5-day media workshop at one of the universities in Taipei 世新大學. My presentation was about ... Poland. How to make an interesting presentation about a country? That was a task for Zosia! She is the expert in using Prezi to make presentations. Look what she has made: The presentation went well. Most kids were interested and afterwards had many questions. Some of the questions that I was asked were: What do people in Poland eat? What are the interesting things to see in Poland? Are all people in Poland tall? Do children in Poland have ...

(For Polish please scroll down to the bottom of the page.) We don't really get time off school during summer vacation. If only the kids are home, we still try to continue woth our math, history, biology, geography and lanuages lessons. Since the beginning of vacation Jaś hasn't spent much time at home (he's taking part in quite a few summer camps), so I have more time to concentrate on Zosia's and Ania's lessons. For the past two weeks Zosia has been learning about Bible - not the Bible stories though, but looking at the Bible from literature point of view. She was reading about the language, history and the literary genres in Bible. Afterwards she has prepared a Prezi presentation about what she has learned. W naszej domowej szkole nie ma czasu na wakacje. Jeśli tylko dzieci są w domu, to staramy się kontynuować naukę matematyki, historii, biologii, geografii i języków. W tym roku od początku wakacji Jaś rzadko bywa w domu (jest już na trzecim obozie), m...

In my parents' generation it was quite natural to use Latin sayings in a conversation. Even my generation still uses some, like per se, per capita, per diem, quid pro quo et cetera . But how about our children? Teenagers? Will they still use the old Latin phrases or will they slowly disappear from our every day language? Wanting Zosia to sound smarter ;-) I asked her to learn a few Latin sayings and phrases. Here is her presentation (she never does things the easy way ;-) ). Do you have your favorite sayings in Latin?  Do your kids know any?  Please share your thoughts below.

Od czasu do czasu udaje mi się zagonić Zosię do zrobienia jakiś innych lekcji niż tylko matematyki i edytowania filmów. W tym tygodniu czytałyśmy np o antycznym teatrze greckim, czyli o czymś czego polska młodzież uczy się w liceum. Po przeczytaniu tego, co było w podręczniku Zosia miała zrobić notatki z lekcji. Oto co powstało po dwóch dniach studiów nad teatrem: Jeśli prezentacja poniżej nie działa jak należy do proszę kliknąć tutaj .

For the past few months Zosia has been reading "The Usborne Introduction to Genes & DNA".  This book comes as one of the "textbooks" for the Sonlight curriculum. It's very informative and beautifully illustrated. A big plus is also the so called Internet-Linked  feature which allows the reader to easily find more information on each topic. In the past two years Zosia has become really interested in the biology of the human body and genetics. As a short project summarizing what she has learned from this course she made a Prezi presentation about the history of genetics. Here it is:

It's always been a struggle for Zosia to take notes the traditional way - with pen and paper. That's why I've been trying to find new ways for her to organize notes and thoughts. After mind maps (take a look at the posts about Zosia's mind mapping projects ) we decided to try something new - Prezi . It's more of an on-line presentation tool than note taking tool, but it seems to work very well for our purpose. Take a look at the presentations below, the first one is a family tree of a Polish kings' dynasty, Piastowie, the second one is the biography of Pope Francis.