Family Fun Day with the Homeschool Community (August 17, 2010)

This small group can't wait for the fun to begin...

I’m so glad that we found a homeschool community that share the same value in education and faith. We met and decided to have a Family Fun Day on the 17th of August to celebrate Indonesia’s Independence Day.

Last year, our family joined in with the neighborhood, playing traditional games and had a feast dinner together as one big family… the whole neighborhood. But, this year, because of the fasting month for Moslems (and my neighbors are mostly Moslems), we didn’t do any big celebration.

So, I’m very glad that we can go with our Homeschool community to Taman Budaya at Sentul City. They have the outbound activities for children from 3 years old! 3 hours of activities and FUN...

It’s a celebration of our country’s freedom from colonization and freedom it is for our kids from their fears as they engaged in every activity that was set for them. It’s thrilling, adventurous, and fun. All of the activities have been carefully chosen so it’s very safe. It’s good to develop decision-making skill, to counter their fears, learn balance, and to solve problems.... and most of all, they enjoyed them so much.

Here are the pictures:

Brandon put on his silly face

Andrea is excited!

Putting on safety belt

Brandon is walking on the wobbly bridge...

Andrea is very good in this...

Going down the hill... walk backwards and holding on the rope (that's me in red, following them around)

Crawling... piece a cake!

Spider net... figuring out where to step...

Coming down... from the spider net bridge

Andrea's turn...

A higher spider net bridge... to the flying fox tower

Brandon with his silly face again... waiting for his turn to fly down

Woohoooooo! Flying down.... so much fun! Actually, this is the 2nd time...

Another challenge... the Raffling Tower

Andrea at the Raffling Tower

Coming down from the Raffling Tower at the other end

Andrea's turn...

Brandon is walking on a bamboo stick

Fall down... it's perfectly safe (Dad's watching from afar)

Off to another challenge... oh boy!

Andrea has to go through the mud...

Brandon also...

Then go through the tunnel made of wheels...

Well, that's the last activity where the children get wet and go take a shower afterward. They had so much fun and they learned a lot, too!

Andrea, all clean and fresh after a shower... posed in front of a giant angklung

Andrea's First Lapbook

These are the pictures of Andrea’s first lapbook. It’s about the Independence Day of Indonesia. We are going to celebrate it on August 17. Dea has never made a lapbook before. So I searched the web and found some sites that are very helpful. These sites let us download the lapbook templates and also show some samples. I got all the templates here.

Okay, first, of course I gathered all the information that we want to put in the lapbook. Since Dea is still Grade 1, I limit the information to the basics only… answering the question of who, what, when, why, and how.

The preparation...

Dea is adding some information about the pictures

More information...

Mini matchbook

Writing the title of her lapbook

The front look

The inside look

I told her the story behind our country’s independence day and that it’s been 65 years now. Then, she wrote down the information under the pictures that we cut, and glued them on the board. We used 3 pcs of folio cardstock. Here's the closer look on the inside:

The first page: Where in the world is Indonesia?; Flag of Indonesia; and National Anthem

National Anthem: Indonesia Raya (score and lyric)

The second page: Important people; the pictures of the Independence Day; Teks Proklamasi; and when it happened

The important people of the Independence Day: Bung Karno & Bung Hatta

Picture of the actual event

The original text of the Independence Declaration (still in handwriting form)

Independence Day of Indonesia: August 17, 1945

The last part of the lapbook: Indonesia now and how people celebrate; How old is Indonesia

Indonesia today...

How people celebrate the day... with fun traditional games...

The front cover

Dea is very proud of her work, even thought it's just writing, cutting and gluing...I asked her to do a "little" presentation of her lapbook, to narrate back what she knows about our country's independence day. Oh,I'm so proud of her.

First Field Trip: Noodle House

I should have posted this a couple of days ago but I was so busy. It's Andrea's first field trip with the Homeschool Community, we had so much fun learning about how to make noodles.

The noodles use natural food color such as horenzo (some people call it Japanese spinach) to get the green color; carrot for orange, and beetroot for reddish purple color.

To prepare the food colors:
1. Chop the spinach/horenzo and put in blender, then blitz.
2. Cut the carrot into smaller pieces then blitz in a juice extractor.
3. Do the same with the beetroot.

Next, the noodle making process:
1. In a measuring cup (for easy pouring), beat lightly 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, a pinch of salt, and the food color.
2. Make a well in the middle of the flour (500gr), then slowly pour in the mixture.
3. Knead it just like you make bread until the dough feels rubbery and not sticky.
4. Do the same with the other colors.

5. Run the dough in the rolling machine (this is a special machine) to make the dough thin. If you don't have this machine, then you have to use the rolling pin which will take a long time.
6. When it's thin enough, sprinkle some cornstarch on both sides of the dough.
7. Cut in half to make it easier to run in a noodle machine. Do the same with the other doughs.
8. Now the doughs are ready to be cut in the noodle machine.

9-10. Roll the dough once or twice to make it thinner in the noodle machine.
11. Then, run it through the noodle cutter using the same machine.
12. Do the same with the other colors. Tadaaa... here comes the freshly made colorful vegetable noodles!

Next, we cooked the noodles, seasoned with sesame oil and salt, put stir-fry pork on top of it. Mmm-mmm-mmm... yummy! After eating the whole bowl, we went home with a full stomach. Aahhh....what a happy day!

Andrea really enjoyed watching the whole process and got to try kneading the dough, too.

It's a new experience for her.