Babel School in Taiwan

Who would have thought that in the middle of autumn it's going to start snowing in Poland? Fortunately the snow came after we got back from our trip to Podlasie. It would not have been fun driving in snow without winter tires ... Kids had a real blast. Jas wanted to play in snow as soon as there was enough to make a snowball. Problem was - the gloves got wet  immediately and the hands got cold soon after, so he gave up the idea of making a snowman. Zosia was happy to try out her winter boots and coat she got for her birthday. It has just started snowing ... A few hours later the playground  was covered with a blanket of fresh white snow. Jas wrote his name in huge letters in the playground. It looked and felt like a real blizzard in the middle of winter. The Warsaw Old Town roofs covered in snow. The mermaid, symbol of Warsaw, on the Old Town Square. The very wintery scenery.  

Time flies ... after almost a month in Europe we are back in Asia. Despite of that I would still like to write something about our time in Poland (and later in Germany). As I mentioned in my last post, we went to Podlasie in the eastern part of Poland. And although weather was not perfect - chilly and a bit wet, we managed to see quite a bit. In that part of Poland there are three big National Parks - two river parks (Biebrzański i Narwiański Park Narodowy) and a big forest park (Białowieski Park Narodowy). Originally we were supposed to go to the Białowieski National Park to see the famous bisons, but I couldn't find any nice and not too expensive pensions to stay and that's why we ended up in Pentowo. An over 1km long footbridge across the wetlands in Narew Nat'l Park. In few places instead of footbridge there was a pontoon that needed to be pulled - not an easy (nor clean) job, but Jas was happy to help in getting us to the other side. Many tiny spiders...

We are back in Poland, but this time whole family is here. Zosia, just like last time, decided to go for a few days to a Polish middle school. She enjoyed her time with friends a lot, but thought that some of the lessons were a bit of a waste of time. She did like math and biology classes best. She didn't like all the note taking during Polish literature class. Jas has been doing math exercises and writing a journal almost every day. He's also been helping in the kitchen and going shopping with Dziadzia. The first two weeks we've spent in Warsaw, but now that Tim has come, we decided to see a bit of countryside. Today we drove to Europejska Wieś Bociania - Dworek Pentowo (European Stork Village) which is located between two national parks - Biebrzański i Narwiański Park Narodowy. We also visited the city of Białystok. The weather is not as nice as we would like it to be, but as long as it's not raining it's OK. The 108 years old house we are staying in. ...

Do all boys love to play with batteries, electricity, circuits etc? I know that my boy does. He is obsessed with batteries - in his room, on his desk, among the books you will find batteries, all kids of batteries. He knows that to run his train set on full speed he needs a set of "fresh" batteries and that he doesn't need very strong batteries for a TV remote. He checks how much "juice" is left in the batteries and marks them accordingly (puts little stickers on the ones that can be used, for example, only in remotes). This semester we are doing some experiments with electricity and circuits. This is what we created before we left Taiwan: Light is ON ... and light is OFF.

Another project finished - this time we made a lapbook (or something like that) based on a book by C.S. Lewis The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Not long ago Jas started listening to the whole series of Narnia audiobooks. He would wake up in the morning, when everybody else was still asleep, and listen to the stories. I didn't really know how much he understood from the story  so I wanted to check it. After a short search I found beautifully designed questions for every chapter at Homeschool Share . It's not a short story, so there were quite a few questions for each chapter. We discussed and wrote answers to 2-3 chapters a day. This way we finished everything in less than two weeks. Zosia has come up with a beautiful cover for our lapbook.

Jas has always liked watching and listening to birds. Last year for his birthday he got good binoculars for birdwatching. Sometimes in the morning he carries them and a birdwatching book while he takes our dog for a walk. He knows the names of many birds on our mountain and I can tell you that there are quite a few different species. Our birdwatching books are very useful as there are many different species of birds in the mountains where we live. A few weeks ago we started reading about birds from The Usborne Book of Knowledge. Jas became interested in the "birds' extremes": which one is the fastest, which one is the largest, the smallest or has the longest beak. I found a lot of useful information on Enchanted Learning website. Additionally I printed out pictures of different birds and made small booklet for Jaś. Next it was Jaś' turn to fill the booklets with information about the birds. That's how our Extreme Birds bookle...

Niewiele osób zdaje sobie sprawę z tego, że w Polsce uczenie własnych dzieci w domu jest również możliwe i od 1991 roku dozwolone prawnie. Pionierami edukacji domowej w Polsce jest rodzina Budajczków. Pan Marek Budajczak jest autorem książki pt. Edukacja domowa , przybliżającej rodzicom ten mało znany w Polsce sposób edukacji dzieci. Chociaż dzieci państwa Budajczaków zakończyły już edukację w domu, to cała rodzina nadal jest zaangażowana w ruch homeschoolingowy. Żona pana Budajczaka, Iza Budajczak, prowadzi między innymi blog Pionierzy Edukacji Domowej . Gdy dzieci były małe ich pokój wyglądał jak mini klasa Montessori. Wielu znajomych pyta mnie gdzie znaleźć informacje o ruchu edukacji domowej w Polsce. Niestety sama nie za bardzo się orientuję, ale szybki 'search' w internecie naprowadził mnie na następujące strony: Strony informacyjne Stowarzyszenie Edukacji w Rodzinie - tu znajdziesz odpowiedzi na wiele podstawowych pytań o edukacji domowej w Polsce. Polecam...

Two weeks ago, just before the end of the exhibition, we finally went to see - Salvador Dali. Mind of Genius. The art works presented were not the most popular ones and the space in which they were shown (中正紀念堂) was lacking good lighting and ... space. It was very, very crowded. But despite all that we did see many sculptures and graphics by this great artist, as well as a few of his paintings. Jas' artwork inspired by Dali's art. Zosia's artwork inspired by Dali's art.

Again chemistry and again mind maps. I must point out that chemistry is NOT Zozo's favourite subject, neither is it my area of expertise. So you may be wondering why is Zozo spending so much time designing these mind maps. Answer is simple - if not for mind maps she wouldn't even want to read or listen about chemistry. Thanks to mindmapping I know that she has at least read the assigned material and spent some time analyzing it and trying to understand it.

Back to learning Polish history and making mind maps about it. This time Zosia was reading about a Polish king from XI century. She used the mind map to put all the information in order.