Chinese New Year (and other adventures in geography)

I almost didn't get this post up, and it's a little late, but hey, they celebrate for two weeks, so here it is. We were focusing on geography the last couple of weeks, reviewing continents, reading books about Canada and Mexico, and then about India and China, the two foreign countries that my children are most interested in. We honed in on Chinese New Year activites beginning on Wednesday, which is when the new year began in the U.S., and continuing on through today. Here are some of our activities for Chinese New Year:

Video:

Chinese New Year by Schlessinger Video Productions

Books:

D Is For Dancing Dragon: A China Alphabet-one of the favorites
Celebrating Chinese New Year
Daisy Comes Home- a typically stunning Jan Brett storybook
I Remember China (Why We Left)
Lao Lao of Dragon Mountain-the story highlights the art of paper cutting. It also has a parallel chinese text, and a breakdown of several Chinese characters that resulted in Ethan working very hard to replicate the character for dragon.

still to read -
You Wouldn't Want to Work on the Great Wall of China!: Defenses You'd Rather Not Build
The Great Wall Of China (Aladdin Picture Books)
Ms. Frizzle's Adventures Imperial China

Periodical:

Kids Of Courage: China Olympic Countdown or Crackdown, 1st Quarter 2008 issue(from Voice of the Martyrs)

Crafts:

Chinese New Year coloring page
Year of the Rat coloring page
Dragon Parade Puppet - these were such a big hit! They loved making them and playing with them.
Paper lanterns (also found here)- Ethan made several of these which we strung together on a paper chain to make a garland

More stuff:

We enjoyed Chinese takeout on Wednesday, trying a couple of new dishes.
Ethan wrote a silly dragon story on this handwriting paper. Here is a Great Wall lined page too.
What Is Chinese New Year? and more crafts from Kaboose.
Great links at Activity Village
Glimpses for Kids: Gladys Aylward - we actually read a bit of a longer story in Hero Tales earlier this year which the children enjoyed very much
And their Gran has been sharing the story of The Heavenly Man with them for the past few months.

I have to mention a few books on India that were particularly compelling:
Count Your Way Through India
In The Heart of the Village: The World of the Indian Banyan Tree - richly illustrated
Taj Mahal - beautiful love story behind this famous tomb