Taiwan (well, food from there)

Studying Taiwan was fun, but the end of the summer was so full of back-to-school events that we really didn't do have time for much besides eating Taiwanese food, which was a mixture of Filipino and Chinese foods.

We ate steamed buns, potstickers, three-cup-chicken, shaved ice desserts, and various stir fry dishes. We ate out at a Chinese restaurant run by a man from Taiwan. We drank grass jelly and basil seed drinks.

Our exchange student from Germany thought it was odd but fun that during her first month here she learned so much about Taiwanese food. I pointed out to her that any food made in America by Americans is technically American food! After all, hamburgers and hot dogs? German-American food, actually. Hamburgers even get their name from the German city of Hamburg.

Hypocrisy

In Luke 12, Jesus addressed hypocrisy, the practice of pretending to be holy while hiding great sin. This is what he said:

2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.
3 Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

I have three words to say in connection with those verses, and then I shall restrain myself, for this is a family-friendly blog. They are "Ashley Madison hacked."

Carnival of Homeschooling: Yes, Summer is Really Ending Already

Welcome to the Carnival of Homeschooling for August!

It's been summer. Supposedly a period of lazy, hot days of doing nothing much, right? Um, yeah.

Besides welcoming an exchange student from Germany into our home, finishing up math curriculum from last year, and tutoring a teenager in math, we've also been learning about other countries all summer. Right now, we're learning about Taiwan (the grass jelly drink is not going over well, but rice is an eternal favorite in this house). You can read a bit about our less-than-successful trip to observe competitive table tennis at my last post, "Taiwan, Table Tennis, and Toddlers."

What are you doing this summer? Better do it fast, because summer is about over. The teenager I tutor starts school tomorrow. My children are starting the new school year on Monday. The exchange student starts public school next Wednesday.

Did you know that exchange students must attend a regular brick-and-mortar, full-time school? That's one thing the Cates of Why Homeschool found out upon agreeing to host a Japanese exchange student this year, and now they are diving into the experience of being public school parents. Read about it at their Carnival submission, "We are finally going to experience public school."

Mama Laws, who is introducing her new blog, did summer schooling in math and reading with her children. She posts about it in "Mama Laws."

I am intrigued by the Star Wars math and language arts workbooks that Mama Laws mentions. I'll be looking those up on Amazon once I finish posting the Carnival. Coincidentally, last night I finished a project that seems similar to those workbooks. The boy I tutor in math is obsessed with Spider-Man and genetic engineering, so I wrote him a short story in which Spidey goes up against genetically-altered dinosaurs. My daughters helped me illustrate the story, and in each chapter I utilized an algebra concept that the boy has struggled with. It turned out rather well. I think it qualifies as fan fiction, so I'm going to make it available at this Google Docs link for anyone who'd like to download and enjoy it!

Carol at Journey & Destination submitted a beautiful and inspiring post entitled "Culture of Character." Using many quotes from Charlotte Mason, it meditates on the formation of character and helping our children develop the ability to serve others.

That's it for this month's carnival! Thanks to those who submitted, and I hope to see many more submissions in future carnivals because I look at them all and learn much from them.

Taiwan, Table Tennis, and Toddlers

We are now learning about Taiwan. We went to an Asian market and bought mochi (yes, it's Japanese, but now it's Taiwanese, too), frozen rolls for steaming, fried shallots (apparently rather fundamental as a food topping in Taiwan), 100 lbs of rice, and various other Taiwanese treats.

A popular sport in Taiwan is table tennis, i.e., ping pong. An internet search turned up a local place where people get together to play ping pong in an organized fashion. We went to check it out, hoping that not only would we see good table tennis being played, but that we might be able to play a little, too. Sadly, all the tables were occupied, and dd3 began to cry. Oops. The organizer hurried over and asked us to take her out to the hallway to prevent her from distracting the players, which we did, but then she melted down entirely as only a toddler can. So much for any thoughts we might have been entertaining of becoming competitive ping pong players. I guess it's for the best. We don't even own our own ping pong table.

Homeschool Carnival coming in just a few days!

Please submit posts to the August homeschooling carnival, which I'll be posting in just a few days.

Here are the instructions on how to do it:

You can send in up to three posts about homeschooling via with an email to: CarnivalOfHomeschooling@gmail.com

Please include:

 Title of Post(s)
 URL of Post(s)
 Name of Blog
 URL of Blog
 Brief summary of the post(s)

Please send in the entries by August 10th at 6:00 PM PST.