Around the World Tea Parties: China

 

For our second trip around the world this winter, we visited China. Our Five in a Row book was The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wise, which is about a duck who lives on the Yangtze river and learns a lesson about obedience. We enjoyed learning about China, doing a  sink/float science experiment and learning to draw water.

 

We've been using a few different resources to learn about each country. We find the country on our world map. We read the entries in DK First Atlas, DK Children Just Like Me , and DK Children Just Like Me: Celebrations. We look up videos on youtube of traditional music and dance from each country and listen to the language. I also found some great coloring sheets for Chinese New Year at Activity Village. The coloring sheets also led to an amazing discovery. If I give the three-year-old coloring sheets, we can actually read a chapter book out loud during the day without her pulling my hair or trying to climb on my shoulders. A major victory and we really enjoyed reading Little Pear by Eleanor Frances Lattimore.

For our tea party, we decorated with red and gold and made a paper dragon, and I got to pull out some of the Asian pottery we received as gifts for our wedding. Of course, we had to dress up. Ella wore a Chinese dress we found at a thrift store, and Mabel made a little red and gold vest out of part of  a dress we found in the scrap bag and wore it over a flowered dress. I made the Chinese stir-fry that I knew the girls already liked, but Brent also visited the Chinese grocery store and picked up dumplings, steamed buns, and rice crackers. We also made some almond cookies at home. Through these tea parties, the kids have been much more willing to try new foods. At this party, they discovered that they really like dumplings and rice crackers.