Lilliput Station Adventures

December 6, 2007

China- that's spelled with a C which rhymes with tea which we drink from china!

We are currently doing a study on Asia using the Ancient Far East kit from Hands and Hearts. This kit is fantastic! We have used some of their other kits in the past & they were more like craft kits than anything else. This, however, is closer to a complete unit study. There are mapping and notebooking assignments, Bible verse corrolations, and background info to tie the "craft" to what is being learned. (I think they were planning to revamp all their kits, but I don't know if they have gotten to that yet with everything else that has been going on. )

We started our studies of China by learning about dragons. The kit included a DVD from Answers In Genesis called Dinosaurs and the Bible. The kids really enjoyed this, especially the songs by Buddy Davis. Ken Ham is a humorous speaker who the kids found very engaging. I love how he encourages children to stand up to those who try to teach them evolution by asking politely, "Were you there?"

The dragon puppets were one of the crafts included in the kit. I found the dragon masks online because I thought they'd be a little easier for the younger ones to handle.

Here is my son's notebook page. (He is the oldest, but he has the worst handwriting and spelling!) He still needs to write about why the Chinese worshiped dragons.

They have also made an abacus and are reading lots of books on missionaries. We usually end our studies with a meal from that country/time period, but this time we started out with a Chinese meal. I served stir fry with bean thread noodles and green tea. Suprisingly the kids loved the tea (even without sugar). I really enjoyed the stir fry. I grew up eating a lot of Chinese food, but my husband isn't fond of it so I don't fix it very often.

Here is the abacus:

We also made some "terra cotta" soldiers out of salt dough. We colored it with food coloring and added paprika to the dough. I got the recipe from Marco Polo For Kids by Janis Herbert. It is afacinating book filled with information and project ideas.