The children are fascinated with the Chinese culture. The idea that adults ride their bicycles to work and to get around the cities. The children attend school on Saturdays to learn calligraphy. The calligraphy is used to create characters. Each character represents a phrase or word instead of the way we string letters of our alphabet together to create a word (we practice daily). They use chopsticks instead of knives, forks and spoons. WOW! China is the only place Panda bears can be found living naturally.
And then there's that Great Wall of China. This is aways what facinates young children the most. It is hard to imagine the time, energy and cooperation it took to build this amazing sturcture. So the children always use a variety of building materials to try and duplicate this sturcture.
According to NASA, there was a bit of controversy about whether or not you could actually see the Great Wall from outer space. This is from their site:
ReplyDelete"While the Great Wall of China is very difficult to see or photograph from low Earth orbit, sections of the wall can be seen readily in radar imagery. This image of sections of the wall in a desert about 435 miles west of Beijing was made by the Spaceborne Imaging Radar flown aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. The wall appears as an orange line extending the length of the image. "
They go on to say it's hard to see visually because it's the same texture and color as the landscape around it.
This is very interesting, Lisa! I would like to encourage families to check out the website you are recommending here. I think the children of K-1 would find this extremely facinating.It is hard for any age to grasp the size and scope of such a huge structure. We could make a plan to take them to the computer lab and check it out together. Thanks for you input!
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