China Unit Study

We have done so much of interest this past year that I thought I might take you back to the beginning of 2007 and share some of our homeschooling journey with you.

Besides the standard Maths & English, most of our learning this year has been by way of Unit studies. I am discovering that they involve quite a bit of pre planning on my part, but I do value the way we can immerse ourselves in the subject, and cross many key learning areas at the same time. Learning this way is interesting and fun.

Our very first Unit Study was on CHINA, which was chosen because Daniel (who was 6yrs old at the time) asked questions about the Great Wall of China after he had seen a tv advert mentioning it. It was providential, not only because of Chinese New Year in February and Discovery Channel running some great shows and documentaries, but because the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney held a fantastic exhibition, "The Great Wall of China : Dynasties, Dragons and Warriors". Our family very much enjoyed that day out and found the wonderful exhibition eye opening and informative. Here is a photo of Sarah & Daniel beside one of the many Terracotta Warriors on display. We also enjoyed a scrumptious lunch in Chinatown.

We spent 3 months on this unit. Sarah who is 10 yrs naturally had to read and report on more than Daniel did, but they both have a lovely folder of information, pictures, art work and some photos of the things they did as they learnt about China. They did some mapping work and looked at the flag and geography of China; the varied climates; and the major dynasties and different kingdoms throughout China's long history. Sarah researched from books and printed a computer report on the Opium wars and the Boxer Rebellion. She learnt that modern China struggles between the conflicts of a communist government and the people who want democracy. She not only learnt what the words 'communism' and 'democracy' mean, but also how those systems affect people's lives. I was impressed by the way she put her computer report together. The spacings and the colourful headings were beautiful! Her report was of a fairly basic nature, but given her age I was pleased.

During the unit we also looked at engineering feats including The Great Wall, the Grand Canal, bridges, pagodas, the Forbidden City as well as the current controversial Three Gorges Dam project. They learnt of the many inventions we can thank the Chinese for - gunpowder for fireworks, and kites being the ones Daniel seemed particularly glad about! Because they both just love dogs, they spent almost a whole day at child friendly web sites, and flicking through some books we own, looking for info and pictures about dogs that come from China, and again I was most pleased by the way they put this together, using Microsoft Word and pasting in little pictures of such dogs as: the Chinese Crested, the Chow Chow, the Shar-Pei, and of course, the Pekingnese. We looked at other animals from China including the Panda, silkworms and silk making - which led us to finding out more about the Silk Road, and Marco Polo. We spent some time learning about rice - from the science of how it is grown and harvested, to the cooking of it. We looked through Chinese Recipe books and chose our favourite chinese foods - Honey Chicken/Beef in Blackbean Sauce/Pork ribs and fried rice and had another feast for dinner one night. Yum!

We also learnt some Chinese language characters, tried a spot of calligraphy and found a place to convert our names into Chinese, that was quite funny! Practising some of the pronunciations was hard! Of course we used the local Library to borrow quite a number of books. One of the fiction story books we enjoyed was called 'Chin Chiang and the Dragon's Dance ' by Ian Wallace. I also bought 'Ancient China : To the Great Wall and Beyond' from Homeschool Favourites in Windsor, which I totally recommend.

We tried some maths with an abacus; looked at sampans and junks; and the fashions, including the practice of Footbinding. We were horrified to see xrays that had been taken of feet which had been bound. This was done when the girls were about 5yrs old. They would fold back the toes under the foot and bandage tightly. The bones would be broken and the poor little girls apparently cried for 2-3 years! What is done in the name of beauty! We watched actual video footage of a very old woman still living in a remote village in China that Discovery Channel showed. Her tiny little feet and the way she hobbled around really had an impact on my children and led us to discussions about the lengths that people go to in trying to be 'beautiful' - for instance, tribal piercings, tattoos - we discussed the corsets worn by women not so very long ago which were quite unhealthy, and the wearing of high heels.

Still we learnt more! Like what Chinese New Year is about; the different religions and philosophies in China, as well as the missionaries who took Christianity there.

By dropping ice cubes into a pot of boiling water, we even created a mini monsoon as a science experiment and observed what happened!

Arts and crafts were a lot of fun. Daniel particularly enjoyed making a dragon - unfortunately, we never got to build the little sampan we were going to make out of balsa wood. Might still make it one day!

Can you see why I get excited about unit studies? The learning opportunities truly abound!