My younger children and I have been "rowing" The Story of Ping by Marjorie Flack this week. (Five In A Row, volume 1) We've been having a lot of fun learning about China and its culture along the way. I own Passport To The World: Your A to Z Guided Language Tour by Craig Froman and Children Just Like Me by Anabel and Barnabas Kindersley. We used those to learn more about the people that live in China now. We also found a page with Chinese letters on it and figured out what our names would look like if written in Chinese. I think they're both happy they only have to learn to write in English. Chinese looks hard!
I had checked out a few supplemental books to add to our study of China. We looked at the pictures in The Great Wall of China book by Leonard Everett Fisher, though I didn't read the whole book to them. We also read White Tiger, Blue Serpent by Grace Tseng and The Real Story of Stone Soup by Ying Chang Compestine. The first one was a traditional-style Chinese tale with beautiful artwork, and the second one was a more humorous story. We enjoyed both books.
I found a Scholastic DVD with Tikki Tikki Tembo on it for the children to watch, and an IMAX movie called China: The Panda Adventure which is a true story about Ruth Harkness who continued her deceased husband's work to study pandas and protect them. We all enjoyed watching China: The Panda Adventure! I'm so glad I found it when randomly looking at the library's DVD shelf. My 5 year old daughter added her own movies to the repertoire, though, as she watched Mulan one day, and Kung Fu Panda a different day. I explained to her that Mulan is a Chinese legend but that Kung Fu Panda is just pretend, but she wanted to watch it anyway. At least she's enjoying our week with Ping in China.
It's fun to be "rowing" with my preschooler, kindergartener, and 2nd grader again. :-) Now I need to work on planning next week's FIAR lessons.
April E.
