On to China

Our next stop on our round the world tour is China. I couldn't find the book listed in the original library curriculum, so I started surfing Amazon to see what was out there, then hit the Library to see what they had.

There were quite a few picture books on China, possibly because there are so many Chinese adoptees in the States now. I narrowed it down to three books, chosen for three separate reasons. The Pet Dragon I chose because it shows Chinese characters. I wanted my kids to see how different our systems of writing are and maybe adapt this activity of making old Chinese scrolls to one involving Chinese characters.

I chose Beyond the Great Mountains for its artwork, which is reminiscent of Chinese painting. It also incorporates Chinese characters and it's a poem, which is a nice way to expose my kids to a different literary form. I found some nice poetry prompts here so they could try writing a poem about China, and also some word searches and other activities. I particularly like the Venn diagram and I think we'll use that to compare China to Japan, or China to the U.S.

Jin Jin the Dragon I chose because in China, dragons are helpful. They bring rain and control rivers. I thought it would be nice to look at dragons from a Chinese perspective. I found two great dragon crafts here and here. Not sure which I'll be using. This would be a good place to say that I LOVE THE INTERNET.

I mean really, how awesome is it that all these resources are at your fingertips?

For food we're going to make Green Onion Pancakes, which I think my kids might actually eat. I may also try a stir fry recipe and let them help cut veggies.

My baby will be working on the letter C with some activities from this site. She'll also do some coloring -- here's a link to my search result of China coloring pages.

Next Stop: South Korea