Monday, August 18, 2008 - Changing directions...

It had been my plan to continue working on ThunderCake this week... I would like to take 2 weeks for each unit, but the kidlets had other ideas... They decided to go back to China... We looked at China when we worked on the Olympics, but they wanted to go back... So we are doing Ping this week... (luckily I still had some go-alongs and resources from the library)...So, we are doing Ping...

We watched Big Bird in China and talked about the "Monkey King", who was a trickster in Chinese Mythology.

Discussed the Great Wall and how it was built... I had a beautiful book from the library with incredible pictures of the Wall...

We talked about punishments for disobedience under the Emperor and his belief in eternal life and how he had a terra-cotta army created lifesize... We made our own terra-cotta soldiers out of red clay... and built the Great Wall out of blocks... DS got really creative and made arch ways... (he tends to be very detailed)

DD loved the little girls (dressed as ducks and dancing in the video) just like Ping... I think maybe we will try and make some "Pingess" headpieces like the ones the dancers wore and let her perform and dance of her own...

In hstory we talked about Eric the Red and how his son Leif the Lucky found North America 400 years before Columbus on our pre-Columbus journey... We are using the first little bit of school this year to learn about Columbus and Early America then it was math and LA... and we were done for the day!!

Have a great evening!!