Babel School in Taiwan

Since the beginning of April we've been closely following a film on YouTube. Checking the number of hits, promoting it among our friend and friends of friends and reading the comments. Why have we been doing this? Well, it's a first film that Zosia played a major role in and edited all by herself. Two of her homeschooling friends helped her with the story, script and filming. The film took part in Taipei International Children's Film Festival organised by Public TV. Although it hasn't won the grand prix, but was very well received by the public, media and the organisers. If you haven't seen the movie click on it below (it's in Chinese with English subtitles). And here is the news about the film:

Science is probably the most difficult subject to teach for homeschooling moms. Some don't feel confident enough to teach it, others think it takes too much time and preparation to do it more often than once ... a month, there are also those that simply avoid it altogether. Where do I fall? I would say that the second group - getting all the things ready for the experiments at home and then actually taking time to do them is really time consuming, but ... kids love it. So what can I do? From time to time I do need to turn my kitchen into a lab and let them grow crystals, burn sugar, make lots of bubbles, sift sand, magnetize needles etc. As a child I've never had a chance to do any experiments at school, so now I am learning and enjoying the hands-on-science with them. It is a lot of fun, so just take your time and ... do it! Growing crystals   Checking how different substances react with soda, water and vinegar. Is the amount of water in each container the same or is it ...

Sunday afternoon, or more likely Sunday night, is the time that I prepare kids' lessons for the week. Since last fall I've been trying to follow a more strict class schedule. I did write up a weekly schedule showing which classes should be taught daily and which weekly or biweekly etc, and I do try to follow it (of course it does not always work ...). For long term planning I use Homeschool Tracker . All I need to do is every few months input the lesson or page numbers of the books we are using in the order I want to teach them. I do that for every subject and every child. Then I can either look up the schedule on the computer or print it out. It's also very useful if one has to keep track of the work already completed for the schooling authorities. Having everything written up in the order it needs to be taught helps me a lot, I don't need to worry anymore about forgetting to teach something. Of course this matters more when one is homeschooling an older child, lik...

Since Jas has broken his right arm I had to change quite a bit the way I teach him. No more writing, no more playing piano, no more taking care of the animals, no more picking things up, no more helping in the kitchen, around the house or in the garden. He is getting a bit better now, but still needs help in all those things that parents of healthy children take for granted, like dressing, washing, brushing teeth, making bed, putting shoes on, making sandwiches, preparing snacks, packing bag, taking dog out etc. Now I can see how much he used to do around himself and how much time it is taking me to help him with all these little chores. It feels like this 9 year-old is a small boy again. And how about schooling? Fortunately we are homeschooling, otherwise I don't know how he would be learning at school where writing and test taking is the main way to teach. At home I can adjust teaching Jas to his temporary disability. We can't do any writing, but we can still do other thi...

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...