China Unit Study

We have about an inch of snow falling tonight again. (I LOVE that) As we worked together to take the trash to the curb, we lingered a little longer to enjoy the falling snow. Then it was inside to put the kids in warm baths and play some Snakes and Ladders with hot chocolate and leftover birthday cake (mine, from yesterday).

They are just now going off to sleep and I'm prepping for the week. Our two weeks of fun and play are over, but I think we're excited about where we're headed with our learning this month.

• Read the YWAM biography of Eric Liddell and focus on China. Write a four line poem each day about what happened in the chapter.
  
• Study Proverbs 22:1, John 13:35, Hebrews 12:1-2, and 1 Timothy 4:8 (word studies, translation comparisons and memory work).
• Begin a new notebook and think about what we already know about China.
• Paint a Chinese character/word daily. We'll begin with "love."
• Map work for all of China in week one.
• Ancient China study for weeks two and three -- they get to pick the daily theme.
  
• View videos of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing and think about Modern China in week four.
• Replace basic penmanship practice with Calligraphy lessons.
• Read some traditional Chinese folktales.
• Spend two weeks getting our feet wet learning to speak and sing Mandarin Chinese.
• Continue in both of their Math studies.
• Continue in J's Latin studies (maybe not... maybe two languages at once is too much?)
• Get back to J's work in his IEW program.
• B will be working on some map skills for the whole month.
• B will be reading some books to me that we picked out of the early reader section at the library. We're going with the Arthur series from Lillian Hoban.
• Give S plenty of play dough and paper and scissors to keep him happy. He's already got a leg up during this unit. We think he speaks Chinese pretty well already. :-)

We have some other fun stuff happening this week too. I just might post every day.