Weekly Learning Theme: China

Recently Carter has been loving the interactive world map his Gigi and Papa got him for his birthday. When he opened it I figured he would like it later and was shocked by how much he loved it right away. He will sit on the potty just to play with it, finds it at random times and starts playing with it, and was quiet for large chunks of time on our way to and from Houston playing with it. He remembers where certain countries are and will tell me their names and then click on them to hear the reader say their names. Then he pushes the buttons along the bottom to hear facts about the country. He has been so proud to tell everyone pandas live in China. Because of his world map he became fascinated with other countries and would ask me questions about how far away they were and wanted to know more information about them. I asked him if he would like to do learning themes to learn more about other countries and he was so excited. I asked him which country he wanted to start with and he chose China. I plan to go through a few other countries as long as he is still interested. I'll see how much he enjoys learning about other countries and whether he continues to be interested and go from there. It is so much fun to allow him to lead me with our learning themes by showing me what he wants to learn about! This post is super late as we did this learning theme weeks ago but it got pushed back by Elise's birthday posts and Easter posts.

Listed below are the objectives I am focusing on for the themed weeks.  I have updated our objectives a second time because I felt like we were ready to focus on something new.  I plan to continue to implement activities to practice and reinforce our previous objectives while putting more emphasis on our new objectives.  Some of them won't necessarily be targeted with specific activities during our weeks, but I wanted to list them to help me remember to practice them continually.  The highlighted objectives are ones Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:

1. Continue to improve fine motor skills and drawing (specifically I'm looking for him to be able to copy a circle and a square as well as draw a person with 2-4 body parts).
2. Understand same and different.
3. Accurately tell stories as well as retell the story from a book. 
4. Use age appropriate scissors. 
5. Develop a better understanding of time (for example, be able to describe when things happen using morning, afternoon, night)
6. Group objects based on a category (sort by defining feature).
7. Count and understand what the numbers mean.  

Activities/Movement:

• The first thing we did was listen to all the facts about China his interactive map had to share. Carter loves finding China on the map and remembers which country it is. He pushes on the country to hear it's name and then pushes the buttons along the bottom to hear all the facts. Listening to the facts it listed helped me think of some ideas of things to focus on during our learning.
  
• Since pandas live in China we pulled out Carter's stuffed panda bear and played with it. I used it to play peek-a-boo with Elise which she found hilarious. Carter and I played with it by hiding it for each other and playing hide and seek with it. I asked Carter why he thought we were playing with a panda during this learning theme and he was very proud to tell me that pandas live in China.

  

  Playing peek a boo with Elise using the panda.

• I showed Carter a picture of the Chinese flag and told him it is a symbol of the country. I also showed him a picture of the American flag and told him it is a symbol of the country we live in. We talked about how they looked the same and how they looked different. He noticed they were both rectangles and they both had stars on them. Then we made the Chinese flag out of Play Doh using star cookie cutters. As we were arranging the stars on the flag I realized our rectangle made out of Play Doh wasn't big enough so I got a piece of red construction paper and we used it as the base of our flag. We talked about the sizes of the star cookie cutters and looked at the picture of the Chinese flag to determine which size to use. We counted the stars as we worked and referenced the flag frequently to arrange the stars.
  

  

  Cutting stars out of Play Doh for our Chinese flag.

   

  

  Moving over to construction paper for more room.

  

  Arranging the small stars around the larger one.

  
  
• Later in the week we made a Chinese flag out of construction paper so we could keep it. I was thinking as we learn about different countries we can make a flag out of construction paper for each country and then compare the flags, talking about how they look the same and how they look different as we go. Then when we are finished we can make a book with all the flags. Elise foiled that plan by finding Carter's Chinese flag, ripping it and then taking a bite out of it all before I could get over to her and take it away! We are keeping it anyway!
  
  
   
• I kept trying to think of a sensory bin I could make for this theme and then when we were talking about the flag, an idea finally came to me. I died some rice red and then cut out one large star and four small stars from yellow foam. Then I put the stars in the rice to look like the Chinese flag. I added chopsticks to the bin which worked great for Carter to practice his fine motor skills. He used the chopsticks to pick up the stars as well as move the rice around and dig to cover the stars with rice. He actually had quite a bit more fun with the sensory bin than I initially expected him to.

  

  Carter helped me dye the rice red.

   
  
  
  
   
• I wrote a book about China for Carter. I added a page about each of the things I wanted to talk about: their flag, what Chinese symbols look like, Mount Everest, and the Great Wall. I also added a picture of children who live in China so we could talk about how they looked different than him and how they look the same. I made the book with Ziplock bags because Elise loves to look at them too and likes how they crinkle. I pulled the book out to introduce each topic when we started talking about it.
  
   

  

  Elise reading the book about China while I changed her diaper.

• I printed out a map of China and cut it into a puzzle. I cut the puzzle so the pieces were China, the bodies of water around it, and the land around it. That way it would open up a conversation about what is around China. Carter enjoyed putting the puzzle together and as he did it we talked about what surrounded China.
  

• We read a book about the Chinese zodiac and then played a couple different games with the zodiac animals. First I put pictures of the animals in a container and we mixed them up and randomly drew them out. Whatever animal we drew we had to pretend to be and the other people guessed the animal we had drawn. I had 2 of each animal so when we were done we matched the animals together and then sorted them. We decided to sort based on whether they were animals that made loud noises or whether they made quite noises, for example dragons make loud noises and mice make quiet noises. Then we each picked 2 animals to pair the cards down for a game of memory.

  

  Pretending to be a zodiac animal.

  

  Matching the zodiac animals.

  

  Sorting the animals based on whether they are loud, quiet, or in between.

  

  Playing memory with zodiac animals.

• Since tangrams were invented in China, I pulled out our tangrams and the Brown Bear tangram book I made for my classroom. Carter did such a great job making the animals out of the shapes! It had been a while since we'd played with the tangrams and I was impressed he didn't need any help arranging the shapes! As he worked we talked about what shape he was using and compared them to the other shapes.
  
   

• We looked at Chinese writing and talked about how it looked the same as our writing and how it looked different. One of our books was written in Chinese and English. It was interesting to look at how different the writing looked. Carter was fascinated by the Chinese symbols.

• I showed Carter a video of kids doing ribbon dancing and then I gave him some crepe paper taped to one of my reusable straws. We used them as ribbons and made up dances which was a blast. He was cracking me up, getting really wild with it to where it was all tangled up on the straw. This was one of my favorite activities.
  

Craft:

• I printed a dragon mask coloring sheet and had Carter color it. Then we used paper links to make a body and added popsicle sticks to mimic the dragons in Chinese New Year dragon dances. I wasn't thinking and cut the links out for Carter while he colored and then let him help me staple them together. After we were done I was kicking myself for not letting him get some extra practice in with cutting by cutting the links himself! We watched a few videos of dragon dances and then tried out making one up together. We showed daddy when he got home, but Carter's favorite thing to do was run around holding it and sneak up on people to try and scare them.

  

  Coloring his dragon mask.

• To practice holding chopsticks and to work on fine motor skills, we painted using chopsticks. I let Carter pick out colors of paints and I put them in paper plates. Then I put a cotton ball in each plate. Carter would pick the cotton ball up with his chopsticks and put it down onto the paper to make a picture. At first he was holding a chopstick in each hand. I showed him how to do it by holding the chopsticks together in one hand and it was so cute because he told me, "I have a lot to learn!"

  

  How he started off using the chopsticks.

  

  He got the hang of it pretty quickly and did a great job!
• I showed Carter how to draw a panda using circles and he started to try but said it was too hard and stopped.

Special Snack:

• We went out for Chinese food and Carter got rice with broccoli, chicken, and carrots so it was actually food that would be served in China.

Make Believe:

• I showed Carter pictures of the Great Wall of China. We talked about how it was built to protect the country from attacks. Then we used blocks to play and create our own great wall four our cars and toys.
  

Songs:

• I found a whole page full of links to songs about Chinese New Year here. We also listened to the Chinese National Anthem as well as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star sang in Chinese. Carter didn't like it. I think it frustrated him because he couldn't understand it.
• I also made up and sang "5 Little Pandas" to the tune of "5 Little Ducks". 

5 little pandas went out one day, through the bamboo and far away.

Mother panda said, "My babies come back!"

But only 4 little pandas came back. (continues on just like "5 Little Ducks")

Field Trip/Interactive Experience:

• I was a bit bummed thinking about the awesome display about China they had last summer at the Magic House in St. Louis when we visited! I was wishing our Children's Museum was on the list for that traveling display because it was awesome! Turns out it had been in Ty's hometown the month before we did this theme! For our field trip we went on a hike at Turkey Mountain. Before heading out on our hike I showed Carter pictures of Mount Everest and talked about how it was the tallest mountain in the world and it is partially in China. I wanted to pretend we were climbing Mount Everest as we hiked, but Carter didn't think that sounded like fun. Instead we just talked a little bit about how Turkey Mountain is the biggest mountain where we live and how much bigger Mount Everest is.
  

Books:

• China by Janet Riehecky
• One Is a Drummer: A Book of Numbers by Roseanne Thong 
• Red Is a Dragon: A Book of Colors by Roseanne Thong 
• The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin
• Thanking the Moon by Grace Lin
• Bringing in the New Year by Grace Lin
• Dim Sum for Everyone! by Grace Lin
• Fortune Cookie Fortunes by Grace Lin
• Zen Ghosts by Jon J. Muth
• The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack
• Goldy Luck and the Three Pandas by Natasha Yim
• Cat and Rat: The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac by Ed Young
• A New Year's Reunion by Liqiong Yu
• Ruby's Wish by Shirin Yim Bridges
• The Seven Chinese Sisters by Kathy Tucker
• Lon Po Po: A Red-riding Hood Story from China by Ed Young
• The Emperor and the Kite by Jane Yolen
• Two of Everything: A Chinese Folktale by Lily Toy Hong
• Rabbit's Gift: A Fable from China by George Shannon
• The Water Dragon: a Chinese Legend by Jian Li
• The Empty Pot by Demi
• Panda-monium by Cynthia Platt