The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

The Embassy of Indonesia, based in Washington,
D.C., regularly offers concerts, classes in Bahasa
Indonesia, and even martial arts demonstrations.
Math

Using the statistics in the first two sidebars, have students graph the ten most populated Indonesian provinces and the ethnic groups as percentages of the population.

Using a newspaper or the Internet, students can determine today’s currency exchange rates: How many Indonesian rupiah are equivalent to $1? Students can choose ten items from around the house (TV, clothing article, loaf of bread, etc.) and find out how many rupiah it would cost to buy each of those items.

Art

Students of all ages can create drawings, paintings, or dioramas of a place in Indonesia they would like to visit, an animal or plant they would like to see, or even decorations for an Indonesian cultural celebration they have read about.

Students with a flair for or an interest in fashion could sketch people in traditional dress, and younger learners might even enjoy making paper dolls with In-donesian-style clothing.

Students can try their hand at making batik, the popular wax-resist technique of fabric dying. Dharma Trading Co. and Amazon both offer batik-making kits. What’s a super simple (and not too messy!) way to try batik with younger learners? Have students draw a picture with regular crayons on paper, then lightly paint over the design with washable watercolor paints. The results can be lovely!

Indonesian Facts to Graph:
Top Ten Most Populated
Provinces (2010)

Jawa Barat: 43,053,732 Jawa Timur: 37,476,757 Jawa Tengah: 32,382,657 Sumatera Utara: 12,982,204 Banten: 10,632,166 DKI Jakarta: 9,607,787 Sulawesi Selatan: 8,034,776 Lampung: 7,608,405 Sumatera Selatan: 7,450,394 Riau: 5,538,367

*I have included only the ten most populated
provinces.
Source: “Population of Indonesia by
Province” (Badan Pusat Statistik—Statistics
Indonesia)

Language Arts

After reading some traditional folktales or Indonesian children’s stories, have learners create their own legends or fictional stories about Indonesia (two examples: “How Mount Merapi Came to Be” or “A Komodo Dragon’s Island Adventures”).

Write a journal titled “A Day (or “a Week”) in the Life of an Indonesian Child My Age.” Talk about what school is like, the area where you live, what you eat, do for entertainment, and so on.

Music

With its rich cultural diversity, Indo-
nesian music is varied in style. Gongs,
flutes, and percussion instruments are
commonly used throughout the archi-
pelago. Vocal music can range from
children’s songs to love songs to long
historical chronicles in song form. Kro-
ncong is a musical hybrid that com-
bines European musical elements with
those of traditional Indonesian music.
Gamelan music is an amazing instru-
mental ensemble that typically includes
many bronze percussion instruments.

Home Economics

Experiment with recipes for Indonesian food. From sweet to savory, there’s a flavor for every student in one of the many Indonesian cookbooks available. Kari Cornell and Merry Anwar’s Cooking the Indonesian Way is a great beginner cookbook written for children. The Rasa Malaysia website also has loads of easy, kid-friendly Indonesian recipes from Balinese Chicken to Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice).

Don’t have lots of time to cook? Have kids research the most commonly eaten fruits in Indonesia, and then buy some, slice them up, and have a “fruit feast.”

Spelling and Vocabulary For the lower elementary-aged kids, spelling and vocabulary words can include these: forest, island, paddy, and rice. Upper elementary words include agriculture, archipelago, diversity, tsunami, and volcano.