Two Weeks of China - Lots of Pictures!

For the past 2 weeks, we have learned about China in our History and Geography lessons.

It has been a fun two weeks. Here are a few pictures from only some of the activities we did...

We learned how to play Chinese Checkers.

We ate a Chinese meal of stir fry and fortune cookies. The noodles you see in the stir fry are called rice sticks. It was a nice change from the usual rice grains, or wheat noodles.

We used our Global Art book to learn how many Chinese artists will not sign their name to their artwork but, instead, will stamp their initials onto it. To explain this, we gouged out the kids initials on a small eraser, then used an ink pad to stamp the "signature" onto their artwork.

We learned about Tangram puzzles, where shapes are cut out and designs are made with the shapes. Here, the kids used their shapes to make a swan.

We also made paper Chinese lanterns and watched You Tube videos about the Chinese New Year, a time when a lantern festival takes place and hundreds of lanterns are released into the night sky.

I finished up our studies of China by pulling out some of the keepsakes given to me by my pen pals from Taiwan many years ago. My husband and I also received some things from two Korean college students who stayed with us for a weekend (before we had kids). The kids enjoyed looking at all the items, but especially the delicate art of papercutting. After we looked at all the paper animals, each of the kids chose one they wanted to draw and put into their school notebooks.



Road Runner took a look at the purple dog and decided she wanted to draw that. Not a surprise, since dogs are her favorite animals!

Coyote decided to draw a dragon.

We also listened to Chinese music, learned a little about Buddha, learned about the ancient practice of foot binding, and read about some missionaries who went to China. 

For Science, we mostly concentrated on oceans. We labeled the 5 oceans on a worksheet, learned about the different levels of the ocean, which animals live in the ocean, and got to see what the ocean tastes like when I mixed 1 tsp. of salt with 10 TB of water.  

Aside from our usual school studies, we also took a field trip to the local Bank and Post Office.

Here we are inside the bank vault where all the safe deposit boxes are kept.

Here we are in the Board Room.

At the post office, each of the kids took a turn at hand-stamping a letter.

And, since our Aggie Cat has been feeling much better, the kids have been enjoying spending some extra time with her.

Next week, we start learning about JAPAN!