This year I choose to combine my two middle children for their geography class. I decided to go with the curriculum, Galloping the Globe, and am so glad I did. The children have learned and retained so much with this curriculum's approach. I do have to plan ahead a bit and order books from the library, make copies, etc.., but it is all worth it just to see my children grasp and enjoy geography.
For the past few weeks we have been learning about China. The children keep a notebook for the activities, vocabulary words, drawings, creative stories or mini-books. I also like to read aloud stories to them and for China I choose to read about Hudson Taylor. He was a missionary to inland China, if you ever get the gumption(is this a word?), anyway if you ever get the itch to read about a missionary I highly recommend reading about Mr. Taylor. I promise you will need tissue and feel as though your struggles are so small in comparison to his...but you will learn a lot and probably pray for strength like his...amazing story!
We also did a mini-book on Panda Bears. Don't you just relish the fact that you can find anything you need on the web...great help for us home school moms. I found Mandarin Chinese characters. Because they use only characters and not letters we had to dig up the meaning of the children's names to write them in Chinese.
For the grand finale I saved up and we went out to a Chinese restaurant. It was great fun and we even tried to use chop sticks....notice I wrote tried!
It just so happened that we needed a few items at Lowe's and so I turned a usually boring trip into something fun...a scavenger hunt! I told the middle two that they had to find things made in China. YES, GASP...I really broke my steadfast rule of "hold your hands and don't touch anything" rule and let them pick things up and look for the "made in China" words...needless to say time flew and they enjoyed looking.
A great lesson occurred in Lowe's as we only found one thing...one thing...one thing that was made in the U.S.A. Not lights, fixtures, screws or nails, scissors, tool kits, measuring tapes, eye protection,....no none of those! We only found mailboxes that were made in our country. We were able to talk about how much we purchase from and are very reliant on foreign countries instead of standing on our own....it was a real eye opener to me just how much we have in our home from China...what would America look like of we only purchased things made in the U.S.A.? I doubt very much that China is filled with things "made in the U.S.A." - it is a shame but I won't keep rambling on and on about it!
On the way home, as we came across the pass, this is what greeted us! The picture doesn't do it justice but it looked like fire spread across the sky - glorious!
Thanks for stopping by...see you next time as we travel across the globe!
