First Month: Review

First, we have to postpone Donna's German Class in Optimal Studia Bsd, because their administrator said that the amount of the students were not enough to make one class. The administrator said, they still don't know yet when the class would be opened. We've tried to ask Goethe Institute, for the age under 13 yo are restricted (and Donna is 11 yo now), by sending an email to them a few weeks ago.  I asked them to give Donna a try in their teenager class, for she was used to learn with 1-3 years older friends in her Primary classes with very good results in subjects she likes. She almost always be the youngest in every class and some competitions she joined. So I think it wouldn't be a problem for her, especially for this German language, where I saw her enthusiasm in her daily practise with Duolingo Apps. Well, I don't get any answer from them so far.

Second, Donna already starts her flute class since early August, and she looks enjoy the course. Especially when she has her own flute, a Yamaha 211 e mechanism one :)

It's not easy to support all of her passion, but surely her Father and I will do our best.

FAQ tentang Homeschooling

Ada teman yang berbaik hati membuat podcast tentang "FAQ Homeschooling" yang ingin kushare di sini.
Silakan menyimak : https://soundcloud.com/rumah-inspirasi/sets/faq-homeschooling
Mengapa mereka sampai musti meluangkan waktu, tenaga dan tentu biaya untuk itu semua? Antara lain untuk mencerahkan masyarakat yang masih suka salah kaprah dalam pemahaman mengenai Homeschooling, juga sekalian menjawab pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang sering diajukan kepada semua keluarga Homeschooler. Dan pertanyaan-pertanyaan itu dari tahun ke tahun sama saja.
Bagiku pertanyaan-pertanyaan itu menggelikan, membosankan sekaligus menjengkelkan. Maka bersyukur sekali dengan kebaikan Lala dan Aar dari Rumah Inspirasi yang berkenan membuat podcast ini.

The Odyssey and The Iliad

There are two good books given by a good friend of mine, "The Odyssey" and "The Iliad".

First, Donna opened "The Iliad",

with its first page like this:

She gave up. It's too hard to understand, she said.

Then she opened "The Odyssey", a retold version in prose,

with its first page like this:

She said it's a good book. And after she finished it, she said that she wanted to go back to read "The Iliad", because it was the book before "The Odyssey", and she's sure it must be a good book too. So for a few hours she learnt the first page yesterday, and decided to continue the rest in her learning time. I know this complete and unabridged version of Iliad is an uneasy book to understand for it comes in old style poetry. This link describes Homer's writing style for Iliad like this:

Clear, Poetic

Both these descriptions ("clear, poetic") of the Iliad's style might seem kind of weird. For many readers, the language of the Iliad seems weird or formal – at any rate, far from clear. And yet, you have to look at Homeric language as more like a foreign language, or learning a new dialect. Once you get the hang of his usual way of saying things, you'll realize that he's almost never being complicated for its own sake. Actually, he's almost never being complicated. He just says things in a very clear and direct way, in his own distinctive language. As for calling it poetic, this might just seem redundant. It is a poem after all. Well, that's true, and becauseof that, it's important to be aware of the distinctive features of Homer's poetic style.

Probably the most famous of these is the so-called "Homeric simile." The first of these similes comes in Book 2, at lines 87-92. (You can look them up here.) They have the three ingredients of any Homeric simile: (1) saying what the thing you're talking about is like (in this case, the army is like bees); (2) describing the thing you're comparing it to (bees); and (3) reminding the audience of what you were originally talking about (the army). The third step is necessary because sometimes the description in part (2) can get extremely long. Keep an eye out for these similes; some of them are very beautiful (and famous).

I tried to find some sources by Googling to support her. I'm so proud of her for she did it by her will and from her heart, not because I told her to do so. That's the essence of learning.
For you who want to read "The Iliad", you can read it for free from Project Gutenberg's. Here is the link.

First Week: Review

--> Wrong choice in one of our English books. It's my fault (I read the Cambridge Secondary 2015 book list inaccurately). I should choose "English as Second Language" instead of "First Language". And I think we'd rather start in the lowest level and finish it fast, than start in the highest level but slow.

So we change one of our English book, from this one

                                           to this one

--> Surprisingly Donna likes Math now (as well as History, Science, Geography and English Writing). During her Primary grades she often felt so stressful to this subject. From my opinion, she did well in her Primary grades Math. Only, most of her classmates took extra math course after school that made them used to count faster. And this reality intimidated her for she often finished  her Math tasks slower. I'd explained to her that that fact didn't show their real abilities. Sometimes it worked and most did not. Now I feel so relief :D  So does her Father :D
He said, She looks so happy now!

We have almost the same schedule everyday, a loose schedule. Change and mix whatever we think suitable with the situation and subjects. The time she takes for each subject is all up to her. Many times I should remind her to stop (bed time or meal time).
Often she learns with some favourite musics as background sound.
Between this and that, she likes to have some fun chit chat via WA with another homeschooler girl ^^

Next week she'll start her flute class and yoga. German language starts two more weeks.

Random of Thoughts

I try my best to:

--> find balance among homeschooling activities, work and keeping a home
--> spend every free minute of the day for learning, writing and illustrating


... by the Grace of God.

Updating Donna's Homeschool

--> Her two ex classmates who wanted to join our homeschool journey were cancelled. They were provoked by some friends, that they'll have no friends if they do homeschool. Well, it is totally wrong, but I don't want to argue too much about that. Time will tell ...

--> Here are the books and subjects that we take now:

- Math (Singapore Math):

- English (Cambridge):

  

- Science (Singapore's and Cambridge)

- Geography (Oxford and Cambridge)

- History 

  Donna likes only ancient histories parts for now (her main focus). Unfortunately we don't find any complete student nor course book about it. So we  use various sources for her. They come from various books (each title usually talks about one specific site, likes Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greek, or Ancient Rome, etc), videos from Youtube, online sites and online courses. And I asked her to write some of what she'd learned in her blog, and this is the first.

- Music

  She continues what she's been doing since she's 3 yo, Classical Piano courses. Next month she'll have her 5th grader practical exam from ABRSM.  She wants Flute class for her next musical instrument, and we're still arranging the schedule for it.

- Other

  She wants German Language for her foreign language, and we have to find a centre for it. And maybe a yoga class once a week.

That's all for now.