Babel School in Taiwan

Zosia finished her TOPS science book about Cohesion/Adhesion today. The last experiments were about ... bubbles.  Why do bubbles have a sphere shape?  How can we change their shape?  How do bubbles join together?  How to make really big bubbles? Joined bubble films created a curved funnel A giant bubble dome A common flat wall between the joined bubbles

Finally! We got out of Taipei to enjoy the beauty of ... the rainy east coast. Our trip started with an emergency stop just outside Taipei and later in I-lan to fill up the engine oil, which was leaking. Well, it looks like it's time to get a new car ... The first day we drove to Hualian 花蓮 where we met with Tufe 土匪老師 (kids' nature class teacher) who showed us a really nice place to stay: Ocean View B&B 海傳民宿 .

When Zosia was small we've tried many art classes for her. Some were big with many branches around Taiwan, others small, led by artists. After trying all of them we've decided on Soho Arts  which is connected to The Children's Art Museum in Taipei. This art class not only teaches how to draw/paint etc, but also shows different art techniques and talks about different artists and art styles. Children use all kinds of materials and means to create their work. Both Zosia and Jaś used to attend Soho Art class on and off for the past few years. This semester they wanted to go back there again. Here are photos of some of their work:

It doesn't happen very often that the kids finish their assignments early. Today they somehow managed to get everything done by the time of the afternoon walk with the dog. And so the three of us plus Inu went for a longer walk around our community. Jaś took with him fish food to feed the very hungry carps in the pond and Zosia had my camera with her to take photos of the surrounding nature. Just take a look at what we saw:

Both Zosia and Jaś have been going to Cloud Gate Dance Studio 雲門舞集舞蹈教室 for many years now.  Zosia, because of her age, should have finished the course this semester, but ... she decided to stay on and retake some of the classes to prepare herself better for the scholarship classes that she has been attending for the past two years. Almost every Sunday she spends over 5 hours dancing. During that time she has balet and modern dance or Chinese martial arts classes and also rehearsal for next year performance. She comes back home dead tired, but with a strong will to go on and on... Jaś, beside the movement class, for the past 1.5 years Jaś has been taking balet classes. He is the only boy in the class and that seems to be bothering him. He loves dancing and often makes his own dance routines at home, but he doesn't like that other boys laugh at him for taking balet lessons. At Cloud Gate Dance Studio kids not only learn about movement and dance, but also ha...

At the exhibition about Egypt we bought a kit for digging treasures. Jaś has spent quite some time quietly breaking down the plaster block and looking for all the hidden things.  This was our first take on a 'dig and excavate' kit. There are all kinds of kits like that, but I've always thought of them as boring and messy. Now that Jaś has done this one I think they are not that bad :-) This is what Jaś found inside: And finally we could play Egyptian Tomb game with these treasures:

Turns out that on Fridays Zosia will be having classes outside home.  This leaves me and Jaś all by ourselves. Today we decided to go to an exhibition about Egypt - 'Quest for Immortality'. Jaś went well prepared as we studied Ancient Egypt last year. He remembered most of the things that were on display. The exhibition was not very big - it took us only an hour to go through everything, but there were still many people.  Later we had a sushi picnic and after that I took Jaś for a haircut - he needed one badly. Here are some photos Jaś took that day:

Post by Zosia: Almost 2 years ago, my mom came up with a project idea about countries that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. It took this long for the project to come to life :-) Just before vacation, on Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, I found a list of countries that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.  We've brainstormed for quite a while and came up with a way to present this project. I've tried to make it as original and artistic as possible... At last I've decided to have little booklets glued to a map/outline of Taiwan (later I ended up using the world map). It took me a while to measure and count the number and size and the way to fold the little booklets, but it took me more than a while to fit the information I wanted into them. This is the list of what is on each page of the booklets: 1st page: Country flag and Chinese name (I had to shorten some). 2nd: Official name (in the country's language) 3: The country's out...

Can I say that we are going back to school? We don't really stop learning during vacation or holidays so there is no ... break from so called school. But still ... with summer over we started using our desks more than during vacation.  This year I am trying to do as much preparations in advance as possible. I've planned all the subjects for both kids for the next half a year. Of course it doesn't mean that this plan is not going to change, we are very flexible and if something interesting comes up or if the kids would be interested in something else than what I have prepared then let it be. Follow the child (most of the time at least). Zosia is still interested in science - physics, chemistry and she still likes math a lot, so we will be doing a lot of these this year. Can't really figure out what Jaś likes. His interests change all the time, from math to history, to building with Lego or drawing. I never know what he will want to do, how he will want...

All the hours at Taipei Arena have paid off - Zosia won the GOLD medal at the Skate Asia 2011 held in August in Bangkok, Thailand. We are very proud of her. Her performance was really beautiful and graceful. See for yourself: