Babel School in Taiwan

W te wakacje Ania kontynuowała naukę kaligrafii w tej samej szkółce kaligraficznej co rok i dwa lata temu. W tym roku do kaligrafii doszły również zajęcia z wycinanek chińskich. O lekcjach sprzed dwóch lat można poczytać TUTAJ .

While I was still in Poland, Ania attended a first summer camp this year. It was just five days long, three hours each day. The camp was organised by a church close to our house so taking Ania there was no problem. This was second year in a row for Ania to attend that camp, but this year the camp was more oriented towards making artsy DIY stuff. Each day kids made different things: Gdy byłam jeszcze w Polsce Ania, chodziła na letnie zajęcia do pobliskiego kościoła. Zajęcia trwały zaledwie trzy godziny dziennie przez pięć dni, ale że odbywały się blisko naszego domu, to nie było problemu z wożeniem jej.  Był to już drugi raz Ani na tych zajęciach, rok temu również brała w nich udział. Bardzo jej się wówczas podobało, poznała nowe koleżanki i nauczyła się nowych zabaw. W tym roku zajęcia były ukierunkowane bardziej plastycznie, więc nie zupełnie w Ani zainteresowaniach, ale i tak dobrze się bawiła.  Codziennie dzieci tworzyły nowe prace: There is still ...

Last week schools started summer vacation. Kids dropped their schoolbags, but will still need to pick them up to write their summer assignments (although by law the schools should not give kids assignments for vacation). During July and August many summer camps are organised for elementary aged children. These camps can be overnight, or whole day or just a few hours a day. They can be thematic (e.g. about insects or birds or science) or just ... fun. Camps in Taiwan are organised by all kinds of organisations - by schools, universities, church groups, non-profit organisations, for profit, after-school classes etc. Everybody can organise a "camp". In the past years our kids went to camps organised by: Juming Museum 朱銘美術館 The Society of Wilderness 荒野保護協會 Wild Bird Society of Taipei 台北市野鳥學會 National Taiwan University China University of Science and Technology - Department  of Aviation Mechanical Engineering 中華科技大學航空機械系 National Taichung University of Education - Mu...

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...

Poprzednie wpisy pokazywały jak Zosia i Jaś opisują (a właściwie opisywali) wydarzenia codzienne , historyczne i świąteczne , a także wycieczki i zwiedzanie . Zapraszam do lektury. Teraz kilka słów o wpisach upamiętniających występy teatralne i koncerty, a także to co dzieci robią w naszej domowej szkole i na wakacjach. Nasza rodzinka lubi się ukulturalniać :-) Dość często chadzamy do teatru czy też na koncerty. Od najmłodszych lat zabieramy ze sobą dzieci. Nieważne czy przedstawienie jest dla dzieci czy nie, one zawsze nam towarzyszą. Wyznaję zasadę, że by dziecko nauczyło się słuchać muzyki, czy też doceniać grę aktorską musi widzieć to wszystko na scenie, a nie w telewizji czy też w Internecie. Niektórzy uważają, że wysiedzenie w ciszy i bezruchu 2-3 godzin, to dla trzyletniego dziecka za długo. Nasze dzieci jakoś nigdy nie miały z tym problemu. W TEATRZE I NA KONCERCIE Jaś miał niecałe 5 lat, gdy po wysłuchaniu koncertu Vocaldente "zakochał" się w muzyce a ca...

How is it - do homeschoolers have school in summer? Of course in our school learning never stops. We learn all year round, no matter where we are and no matter how hot or cold it is outside. This summer both Zosia and Jas have different attractions - cruise, camps, competition and of course normal classes and lessons with Mom. So what have they been doing so far? At the end of June they took a cruise to Japan and Korea. It was a short trip, just 5 days, but it was also something to remember. They liked being on the cruise ship a lot and they made some friends with the staff (especially the bartenders). Unfortunately they didn't enjoy the time on land - trying to see too many things in a very short time. Jas' new idea is to become a bartender or a chef on a cruise. Let's wait and see... (Note - we, the parents, did not go with them, Taiwanese grandparents and aunts did.) Right after the cruise Jas went for a week long basketball day-camp. He has...

I am trying to remember how Zosia's love of photography started. How come the photos she takes are so ... different ... unusual ... special? Does she see the world differently than most of us? Let me take you through her early photography days ... When Zosia was in 5th grade she received her first phone and the only reason she got a phone was because she needed a ... small camera. She was going for a four week long skiing camp in Japan and she was supposed to document everything that she experienced there. We figured out that the best choice would be a small camera phone - easy to use, easy to carry (even when skiing)  and waterproof (snow proof!). This way she became the happy owner of Sony Ericsson C702 . The following summer she went to a camp organised by Juming Museum . There the kids were supposed to explore the five senses - her group was working with the sense of sight. One of the assignments was to take photos while rolling down the hill. Great idea of how to show k...

Zosia sharing her experience at the camp. During summer Zosia participated in a few summer camps organized by Fubong Culture and Education Foundation 富邦文教基金會. For one of the camps she went to Orchid Island 蘭嶼 off the south eastern coast of Taiwan to learn about the aboriginal way of life. At the end of the camp kids had to make a short film presentation about what they have learned. Another camp was in Tainan, where she explored the newly opened National Museum of Taiwan History 國立台灣歷史博物館 . During this camp she not only learned history of Taiwan, but also made a short feature film about one event from the history using the photos taken inside the museum. Images from "The Kite" animation For the last camp Zosia gathered a group of eight homeschoolers interested in film making and together they signed up for the film making camp. After a few days of learning about acting, working as a group and preparing a script for their movie only half of the groups w...

The past few weeks have been very busy for kids - both of them have gone to different summer camps around Taiwan and off shore islands. Zosia went with Fubon Art Foundation 富邦基金會 for a week long camp 「非嶼不可」故事報導營 to Orchid Island 蘭嶼 where she was learning and observing the way aborigines 達悟族 a.k.a. 亞美族 live and work. A week later she went （with with the same foundation) to Taizhong 台中 for another camp 【決戰開麥拉】2012青少年發聲創意影像工作坊 at which she was learning about film making. Beside her 7 other homeschooled kids joined this camp. They have come up with a very interesting story for their animation project, which hopefully they will get a chance to make in the next few weeks. At the same time that Zosia was on Orchid Island, Jas was at Alishan 阿里山 at a camp organised by King Car Education Foundation 金車教育基金會 . There he learned a lot about another aborigine tribe 周族. He went 'hunting' with bow and arrow which he made by himself, he also made a cup from bamboo and l...