Babel School in Taiwan

Many months have passed since we've visited Berlin in November last year. This was first time for Zosia and Jas to go to Germany (not counting the airports, of course). While in Berlin we went to many historical places and museums, for example - Checkpoint Charlie (the most famous checkpoint between the East and West Berlin, the Wall, the DDR Museum, the Stasi Museum etc. Both kids got very interested in the whole "East and West Germany thing" and Zosia wanted to make a project about it. Two weeks ago she has finally started working on it. She gathered lots and lots of information from the Internet and books about the Wall. She then typed and printed out some of the more interesting facts and planned the whole 3D project. This is how far she got: At work Arranging everything Scraps of magazines photos for the Wall Checkpoint Charlie Brandenburg Gate

After 3 looong months of learning, reading, researching, writing about dinosaurs Jas' BIG project is finally finished!  You can read about the materials and books we used in this post .  In April Jas has already finished a part of the project - the dinosaur mural - you can see his post with photos of the mural on his blog . Jas with his dinosaur folder I prepared template for Jas to fill in with information about different dinosaurs. Jas wrote information about 33 different dinosaurs. Incorporating a bit of math into the project   Jas also solved some dinosaur word puzzles.  

Last week our new books from Sonlight arrived. It took 6 days for the box to reach us! What an amazing speed. Don't remember the order getting to Taiwan so fast in the previous years. It took less time for the books to travel from one continent to the other then for me to place the order ... This year I really had hard time deciding what I should order. About a year or so ago Sonlight has made some big changes to their curricula.  The so called Core used to consist only of History/Geography modules and Read-Alouds, the Bible Study was optional. Now not only the Bible Study is incorporated in the Core, but also Language Arts (Spelling, Handwriting, Grammar, Vocabulary, Creative Expression). That is FAR TOO MUCH. We don't need all this additional subjects, we are only interested in the History/Geography part. That's why I had to hand pick one by one all the books. It also didn't make sense to buy the humongous teacher's manual, because most of the pages were deali...

Yesterday Zosia took part in the first part of a modeling competition - 2013 Eeling Star - organised by one of the biggest modeling companies in Taiwan. The competition was fierce, 2175 people signed up. All of them had to prepare a 30 sec. of self introduction and 30 sec. of talent presentation. Zosia was worried that she is not able to present her 'talents' on stage - how do you show that you can ice-skate or ski beautifully? She chose to give a short multilingual speech. She said a few sentences in Polish, English, Chinese-Mandarin, Taiwanese and Japanese. Her performance was shown on 4 different news channels! Today the results were announced - Zosia is one of the 90 young people that got chosen to take part in the second part of the competition/training. Now many days of training are awaiting her. She is going to learn about make-up, acting, posing, how to walk on a cat-walk etc. After the training the best new model will be chosen. The price is a brand new car, Subaru....

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...

Lately I've been very busy. I didn't even have time to write here as often as I would like to. Some of you already know why I am so busy, others will find out soon :-) . I just remembered that I haven't even mentioned the big event in our family... Two months have already passed since Zosia's Confirmation (Bierzmowanie - in Polish). I have been thinking about Zosia's Confirmation for a while, not knowing how to go about her receiving the sacrament. There are no other Polish kids her age in Taipei and the only parish with English language Sunday school is very far away from where we live. That's why I was very happy to hear an annoucement in our church about this year's preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation. It turned out that Zosia would need to meet with sister Florence for an "exam" or should I say, to see if she is prepared to receive the sacrament. On Sunday, May 19th, 2013 Zosia has received the Sacrament of Confirmation in the...

Last week we drove to the southern part of Taiwan. We went there to visit other homeschooling families. Two of the families we met were aborigines living in an abandoned village of Da-she 大社. Four years ago the village was bustling with life, now only four families live there. What happened? In August 2009 the whole village was evacuated after one of the deadliest typhoons on record has cut it off from rest of civilisation. The only road leading to the village was ruined, but the village itself stayed intact. Some time later people were given an alternative place to live - a house in purposely built village at the bottom of the other side of the mountain. Most people agreed and signed papers giving up their home in Da-she. Only four families did not agree to leave their ancestral home. They returned to the mountains and started their difficult life there. Since they didn't want to relocate, the local government had to pay for the road construction. Unfortunately whenever it rai...

Kilka dni temu był Międzynarodowy Dzień Dziecka. Ale co to właściwie znaczy "międzynarodowy" (international)? Wiecie, że istnieje również Uniwersalny (universal) Dzień Dziecka? W 1954 roku ONZ ustanowiło 20 listopada jako Universal Children's Day . Już jakiś czas temu zaczęłam zastanawiać się jak to właściwie jest z tymi  świętami - Dzień Dziecka, Dzień Kobiet, Dzień Matki, Babci, Dziadka, Taty, Święto Pracy, Wszystkich Świętych, Święto Niepodległości... Każdy Polak zna chyba na pamięć daty tych świąt. Jednak po przeprowadzce do innego kraju, baa... na inny kontynent, wszystko zaczyna się kręcić. Musimy uczyć się nowych dat, obchodzić święta w dni dla nas nieświąteczne. Obdarowywać prezentami w dni dla nas zupełnie... zwykłe. Czy łatwo było Wam przestawić się na "nowe" święta, nowe daty? Czy też tak jak ja, nadal trzymacie się starych, polskich dat? Moje dzieci powinny się cieszyć, gdyż teoretycznie mogłyby obchodzić Dzień Dziecka dwa razy w roku. Jednak ma...

For the past few weeks Jas has been learning about dinosaurs. It's not my favourite subject and I've never 'done dinosaurs' with Zosia as she was not interested in them either. It seems like those big reptiles appeal more to boys than to girls. Here are the books about dinosaurs and fossils that we are reading now: As all DK books, this one is also full of wonderful illustrations. I don't agree with everything that's written in this book, but it gives a good starting point for the discussion on creationism vs evolution. And something in Chinese :-) I bought this workbook a few years ago for Zosia, but she wasn't too interested in it so now Jas is using it. Jas is also enjoying watching the BBC series "Walking with Dinosaurs": as well as doing activites from DK Dinosaur Activity Pack: Few more weeks and we will be all done!

Zosia doesn't really like writing. No matter what language, no matter what, she just doesn't like writing. She has never liked it. That's why I was quite surprised that she didn't object too much to the assignment I gave her last week. I asked her to write a short story, something about snow... And here is what she came up with: Hey, Ben :) Zozo is snowed in, and is currently going through “Snow Madness”... Dec. 19, Monday I usually hate writing, but this will probably be the last thing keeping me sane. It’s so boring, I started talking to myself. I would call you Ben. You’re a diary notebook, whatever. Now I’ll briefly fill you in on what’s happening. My name is Zozo and I’ve been abandoned by my  parents snowed in. Literally. The windows will seriously break and snow will come in, and I’ll be living “Day After Tomorrow”. Brilliant. I’ve been stuck here since the day my parents left 3,4 days ago. No, there’s no tragic story about why my parents le...