"Persembahan dan Doa untuk Indonesia" Concert

Last Saturday, Donna had an annual concert provided by her music school for the best three students in each level and department. This concert was a bit different than the preceding years and contributed for the unity of Indonesia. The concert itself was divided into two sessions, Piano department and Vocal, Instrument Strings, Woodwind & Brasswind departments.

What she gets from her piano

"Padamu Negeri" played by the teachers and students of Gloriamus Music School

What she gets from Piano & Flute departments, 1st rank for piano and 2nd rank for flute.

Donna's Fourteenth Statement of Accomplishment from Online Course

This time she finished the course so fast, two weeks before the deadline (Dec 11, 2016) for the subject was her favourite : Ancient Egypt.

Donna's Thirteenth Statement of Accomplishment from Online Course

Donna's thirteenth statement of accomplishment from Coursera: Arch of Titus: Rome and the Menorah from Yeshiva University

Books for My 8th Grader

Here are the books we will use in grade 8:

They are Math 2 (New Syllabus Mathematics 7th edition) from Shinglee, Cambridge Global English 8 and Geog.2 from Oxford.
Oh... and Science Check Point 8. I forgot to photo it. In the last academic year she used Science Check Point 9, and she said that the chemistry part was too hard for her, but the biology part was too easy and she had no problem with the physics part. So we decided to go back to her level, book 8.
For other activities, she has Flute class and Piano class (with 2 different teachers), German language class and Gymnastics.
I think those books are enough for her basic,  so that she has more time to do other things and deepen her interests.

And in this semester, Donna joins a homeschooler community's scout, Pramuka Oase. They are planning to have a big trip called Eksplorasi (Exploration) on this November or December, to make a research about a local food. They are divided into two groups, Kunyit/Turmeric for a longer and farther trip, and Jahe/Ginger for a shorter and closer area trip. No parents are allowed to company their kids in both trips. They meet every two weeks on Wednesday. It is a very good activity for her, though the meeting location is far enough from our house.
Here are some members of Eksplorasi:

Every week they have a different challenge to solve and some task for it. Some must be done individually and some are in group task. Here's Donna's report about them under the "Eksplorasi" tag.

Education Should Be a Journey, Not a Race

This is what my friend Aar Sumardiono wrote about Donna and her online course learning:

http://rumahinspirasi.com/dona-usia-12-tahun-lulus-12-mata-kuliah-online/

Hopefully this article will inspire more parents, especially Homeschoolers, about how internet change the way our kids learn and the unlimited possibilities we have for learning process. I love homeschooling because  it is customised to every single child.

Donna's 9th - 12th Statement of Accomplishment from Online Courses

I don't realise that I've been away from this blog so long :( So many things to do, so little time.
Here are Donna's 9th - 12th statement of accomplishment, all from Coursera:

6/1/2016 "Introduction to Philosophy" by The University of Edinburgh

August 2016 “The Holocaust - An Introduction (I): Nazi Germany: Ideology, The Jews and the World” Tel Aviv University & Yad Vashem 

August 2016 “The Holocaust - An Introduction (II): The Final Solution” Tel Aviv University & Yad Vashem

August 2016 “Palaeontology: Early Vertebrate Evolution” University of Alberta

For the last course, about the early vertebrate evolution, she worked hard for her knowledge level in Biology subject was not high enough to understand the course. She asked me some from the course that she didn't understand, doing Google search and read an IGCSE Cambridge book of Biology. And finally she can finish it very well!
Feeling grateful for all of her accomplishment :)

Donna's Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Statement of Accomplishment from Online Courses

The sixth was "Introduction into Classical Music" by  Yale University through Coursera on March 16, 2015. I forgot to capture the statement :( because that time Coursera change their regulation of student's accomplishment.  So I only can capture it from Donna's accomplishment like this:

Introduction to Classical Music is on the bottom of the list.








The seventh was " Christmas Carol" (Charles Dickens) by Berkeley BookX Club through edX on Dec 29, 2015 :

And the last is "Code Yourself! An Introduction to Programming" by The University of Edinburgh & Universidad ORT Uruguay on May 25, 2016 through Coursera:

Yes, this is the only thing she can get to show her accomplishment, for she's just 12 yo and she can't join the one with statement of accomplishment certificate (by The Coursera's new regulation).

Most of the course she did them well by herself, except the last one. It's an uneasy course for her and her father helped her a lot in explaining and assisting her.

Third Term Review for Donna : Reducing the Books

We feel that the books Donna chose to use in this academic year were a bit too many. The books themselves are good. However, she needs more time to read other good books and deepen her interest (philosophy, flute, piano etc). So she decided to remove two of them from her list. They are:

  

         and

For Geography she still has Geog 1 and for Science she has Science Checkpoint.

Philosophy

Donna showed her interest in Philosophy a few years ago, when she was about 8 or 9 years old. I didn't pay much attention to it,  for I thought it was only her curiosity of something new. Philosophy is a strange thing for my husband and I.
And  several days ago she joined one of the Coursera's course : "Introduction to Philosophy"
A friend of mine asked her, why does she like Philosophy.
And this is what my 12 years old girl says:
They "asks" us to observe and give attention to the things that are usually aren't observed well by other people, confusing, ignored, and usually unpaid attention by the people now. It teaches us to understand our world in a new view, other than the one that usually other people don't.

Discipline and Self Control

This is one of 20 Charlotte Mason's principles in education. I'm not a Charlotte Masoner, but somehow, I agree with this principle. Well, not only this one, but many of them.

"We train a child to have a good habits and self-control." 

For Donna, this means that she has to control herself in using her cellphone. So, we have an agreement. If she couldn't control her time in using her gadget, she could use her cellphone only once a week (on Saturdays). The better self-control,  the more days she could use her cellphone (2 days in a week, then 3 days a week and so on).  If her habit back to uncontrolled, she will back to once a week again.

So far this way help her much. However, without her cellphone, she still can use her desk computer to learn , connect to the world and have fun. The special thing about this desk computer compare to her cellphone is, that this tool stay in a specific place, so it won't be anytime anywhere stay besides her. 

And of course as her parents, my husband and I show a good example for her. We show her that a cellphone is only a tool that help us, so we are not under cellphone addiction.

Plastic Micro Beads in Our Personal Care

 I was shocked knowing that most of our face & body scrub contain plastic micro beads instead of natural ones. They are washed directly down the drain and into our water systems, where they harm our waterways and the animals that live there. It is one of the most dangerous sources of plastic pollution, because they could be consumed by the animals.
We can choose natural scrub instead, like the inside part of lemon or lime skin, coffee grounds, sugar & salt, etc. You can find many natural recipes from Google.
Here is the article I read about the plastic micro beads http://www.5gyres.org/microbeads/

Personal Thought di Awal Tahun

*Dalam Bahasa Indonesia, karena ini masalah yang ada di dalam kepala & hatiku, gerundelanku.

Sudah lama aku bertanya-tanya, mengapa teman-temanku yang kukenal, juga saudara-saudaraku ada banyak sekali yang bisa punya waktu luang.
Mereka bisa pergi main, berkali-kali "reuni", ketemuan (you name it) dengan teman-teman lama. Dari tingkat SD, SMP, SMA, bangku kuliah, teman bekas satu kost, sekota dst. Aku baru sekali ikutan, dan tidak bisa hadir untuk belasan lainnya. Ada yang sinis menuduh aku sombong, tidak mau meluangkan waktu untuk teman-teman lama dst. Well...
Kalau misalnya pada waktu ada acara ketemuan dengan teman-teman lama, pada saat itu anak kalian pas jamnya audisi di suatu tempat, mana yang akan kalian pilih? Kalau aku dan suami jelas pilihannya: anak kami.
Ada pula banyak pertemuan model lain, pertemuan dengan orangtua bekas teman-teman sekelas Donna. Dengan judul "anak-anak ingin ketemu, kangen". Iyakah? Itupun kami tidak bisa ikut.
Juga ketemuan dan acara-acara untuk Anak Berkebutuhan Khusus. Sudah belasan tahun kami absen.
Ada pula beberapa family gathering, atau kondangan, baik ulang tahun maupun kawinan. Banyak sekali yang kami tidak bisa datang.
Media sosial? Tidak terlalu aktif. Makanya aku berusaha menolak kalau diajak masuk grup-grup di MedSos, apalagi yang tujuannya tidak jelas. Tanpa bermaksud menyerang siapapun, pernah aku dimasukkan grup yang isinya OMG, banyak sampahnya daripada isinya. Dalam hal ini aku sangat selektif.
Jujur, aku tidak tahu lagi bagaimana memadatkan jadwal yang sudah padat ini. Bahkan seringkali kesehatanku sampai terganggu karena kekurangan waktu istirahat (baca: tidur) saking banyaknya hal dan urusan yang harus kukerjakan. Mulai dari urusan rumah tangga tanpa asisten totally. Homeschool Liza, supporting Homeschool Donna, dan kerjaan sebagai freelance illustrator. Senin sampai Minggu. Nonstop. Dan walau begitupun aku masih berusaha selalu untuk belajar, berusaha meng-up grade diri, sekecil apapun.
Pernah juga saking lelahnya aku tertidur ketika sedang nyetir di tengah kemacetan, dengan hasil nubruk mobil di depanku :(  Serem sekali karena aku bawa anak-anak.

Untungnya hubunganku, suami dan anak-anak sangat dekat. Setiap ada waktu, yang aku inginkan hanya menikmati dan berkegiatan bersama mereka. Bukan dengan lainnya. Nyaris ke mana aku pergi, mereka ada bersamaku.
Jadi kesimpulanku, semua orang memiliki waktu yang sama, 24 jam sehari. Pemakaian dan pembagian waktu tergantung pilihan individu. Berjejaring dan berkawan tanpa pandang bulu memang penting. Tapi di atas itu semua, tetap First Thing First. Dan bagiku itu berarti keluargaku, dengan satu anak berkebutuhan khusus dan satu anak lagi yang as busy as a bumble bee.