Babel School in Taiwan

Dreaming about the soft pillows, I lick my wounds. Cool in the summer,  warm in the winter. That's how others live. Trying to live through every day,  hunting for myself. That's how I live. a Hebrew poem We've been learning about Hebrew poetry (the kind that's written in the Bible). It's not based on rhyme words, but on repeating or rewarding a line, expanding on a thought or stating the opposite.

M illions of years of tremours and shaking, made the peak rise higher and higher. O h seedling, growing before our eyes, covering mountain sides with green cotton puffs. U p from the branches we watch as our home prepares for its destruction. N either of us can sing over the rumble of the mountain. T oo late people realize the mountain's eruption. A shes and lava prove its anger. I nto the gray sky we flee, looking back at our home. N ever again will it be the same as before.  T all skyscrapers reach my sky. A s the countryside wind blows through my rice fields, I ndigo sky reflects of my waves. W ater once was here, in my dried out gorge. A n amazing sunset awaits for you on my mountain peaks. N ever jump off my dangerous, deadly cliffs. :)

Jas has been learning about different animals of the world as part of his Sonlight Curriculum . It takes us much more time to finish one lesson as some of the animals we study more in depth. This time we read about deers. Afterwards we made a short project about these animals. I got the idea for this project from Homeschool Share . Our project is just a part of the lapbook that you can find there. I've printed out the cards with information about the deer family, but not the photos. I let Jas look for photos on the Internet and put them in a file. We had only the English names for all the deer family, but we wanted to know what there are called in Polish, Chinese and in Latin, so we searched Wikipedia . Jas made a list of the names in all four languages. The weight and height of the animals was given in inches and pounds so we had to search for the same information given in centimeters and kilogrammes. We also added different sizes of male and female deer. We also added ...

It's been raining pretty hard for the past two days. Today all the outside classes (swimming, art, saxophone) have been cancelled, so kids and I are spending whole day at home 'working'. Actually it's a good thing as we have a lot of work to do - lessons, projects, baking. Jas and I started the day with a bit of baking - banana crumble muffins with a touch of nutmeg. Zosia is continuing her work on the Olympic Games project. As always, it's going to be BIG! Lot of information and lots of work. It's slow going, but maybe a day at home will help speed things up.   Jas has been working on his English exercises. He's also been observing the rainfall around our house. Yesterday we made a rain measuring tool and Jas set it outside in the open., making sure it is secured and is not going to tip over in the wind. Now Jas will do some math and practice piano and Zosia will still continue on her project, unless...

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...

It's been a while since I've last posted anything here, but it doesn't mean that nothing has been happening. In my opinion - too much has happened ... A month ago I decided to go back to Poland to take care of my Mom who has just undergone a serious operation. Timing was not perfect, to say the least - with the book promotion tour in full spin it ment that my husband, Tim, would need to take over all the presentations, TV and radio interviews and book signing events. To tell you the truth, I was kind of pleased with that... All those public events are not something that I enjoy. To make things easier on Tim, I took one child, Zosia, with me to Poland. Why the older one and not the younger one? Simply because I knew I wouldn't be able to look after Jas, think of activites for him and keep him happy and not bored. Zosia, on the other hand, can take care of herself, move around the city by herself and do her lessons without me sitting next to her. Before I left, I had t...

I've been reviewing with Jaś what he remembers about how the Earth is built and what he knows about volcanoes. First we read this book: Next we made play-dough: Jaś wanted his volcano to be green-brown-yellowish color, that's why we added some food coloring to the play-dough: Jaś formed his volcano on a plastic bottle: We added a couple of spoons of soda to the bottle: And poured vinegar into it. And voila ... lava started pouring out of the volcano! Jaś also worked with Montessori 3-part-cards of Earth layers: And parts of a volcano: