Babel School in Taiwan

Our one month long stay in Canada has come to an end and we are back home in Taiwan. Not everything went as planned though - our trip was cut short by one week due to a ... broken arm. Just five days into our ski holiday, Jas got hit on the slope by another skier from his class and broke his right humerus (upper arm bone). He was in a lot of pain for many days and nights. Now his arm doesn't hurt anymore, but it still has not healed and we will be going for a check-up tomorrow. That was the sad news, the good news is that Zosia has received her Canadian Ski Instructor's Certificate and is now a certified level I ski instructor. She still can't teach though as she is under 15 years old. She has done really well during her instructor's course. Her examiner (and level IV instructor) praised her skiing and told us that she could easily do the level II certificate course (problem is that she first needs teaching practice and she can't get that until next season).

Before our trip to Canada (that's the other big country in North America, if you don't know :-) ) I decided it would be a good idea to learn more about this large and beautiful country. I've downloaded some worksheets from Enchanted Learning . Some were for Zosia and some for Jaś. Zosia went also on Wikipedia to search for more information on all the Canadian provinces. She later filled out the worksheets about each province and territory. She has also made graphs comparing the area and population of each province.   Kids have done a really good job learning about the geography of Canada, so after our arrival here there were no silly questions about where which city is located - we visited Toronto, Ottawa and Quebec and drove through Montreal - or what is that big river in the East, that looks like a sea, called.

We are spending Christ mas at my grand uncle's house in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Our arrival was pretty late due to the traffic jam in Quebec, Montreal and Ottawa. Before arriving in Ottawa we stayed two nights in Toronto and one night in Mont-St-Anne, in Quebec. Just after we arrived, we watched Cars 2 on a humongous screen in the basement. Next day we went for a snowy walk in a beautiful forest nearby. We walked on a straight path that used to be a railroad and now is a perfect place for walking with a dog or cross country skiing.  After coming back home, Jas and I decided to stay warm in the house with our grand aunt while Mom and Dad went to Ottawa city with uncle. We ended up playing Monopoly for 6 hours (with some new rules of course). On the day of Christmas Eve Dad took us to the Museum of Civilization . It is a great museum with a very cool architecture. In the museum we went to see the Canada Hall and an exhibit about Arctic explorations. Everyt...

A few years have passed since Zosia first appeared in the fashion magazine Vogue (Taiwanese edition). Back then she was just a little, not even 8 year-old, girl. But she still looked beautiful and even ... mature. Just judge for yourself: A few months ago she was asked again to model for Joy, a great make-up artist, whom we have known since Zosia was a little girl. This time he created a completely different look for our 14 year-old beauty:

Most of the third day of your trip to Taidong we've spent at the National Museum of Prehistory . It's a really BIG and ... empty place. Kids enjoyed it a lot and were a bit disappointed that we couldn't see all the exhibitions - it was simply too much for one day. Beside the exhibitions on prehistorical Taiwan and indigenous people of Taiwan there was also an exhibit entitled "Form, Color, Pattern, Texture" 形、色、紋、質：臺灣原住民生活美學的微觀之旅 showing works of different contemporary aborigine designs. Another exhibit was about the problem of  carbon emission in Taiwan and what needs to be done to lower it 低碳臺灣‧高瞻未來─你能‧我也能. Kids enjoyed the most Peinan Cultural Park 卑南文化公園, which is a much smaller archeological museum with lots of hands on activities for children. Not really part of the exbibition :-) Following day we started with a visit to another homeschooling family. There are 5 kids in the family, the parents are hardworking farming people who are doing ...

After some homework over a delicious breakfast it was time to continue our journey down the coast. The after-breakfast fruit platter Rain, rain, rain - that was the weather throughout our drive on coastal 'highway' no.11. On the way we stopped at Joki , an impressive art gallery/restaurant. The wood carving were really amazing. After lunch we kept on driving and driving. The rain has stopped right in time for us to take a walk in Little Yehliu 小野柳 near Taitung 台東. We had wonderful time walking on the rocks, taking pictures and watching the waves crashing on the rocky shore. We arrived in Taidung and after checking out the Naruwan Hotel 娜路彎大酒店we drove down to  the Green House 卑南休閒農場 綠茵小筑民宿 . Of course the kids wanted to stay at the 'real hotel' with swimming pool, spa, play area, restaurants, but we decided on a cheaper and more simple place - the Green House was just right for us. Too bad the weather was wet, we could not make much use of th...

I was learning from the "Usborne Internet-linked First Encyclopedia of Human Body" about eating healthy food. I also learned on the Internet about food groups and healthy foods. My mom told me that I could make a poster about different food groups. Here it is: I also made a small booklet about food groups and wrote some worksheets from Enchanted Learning website: (by Jas)

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: