Virtual Destinations and Beyond! From China to Japan

Hello China! What a fun trip this has been! This was definitely one that we did not want to end! We cooked fantastic foods and played some really fun games. We learned so many new things that even I couldn't believe how much there was to soak in. Even though all the foods on these trips are new to us (well many of them are), the kids always try everything! The main ticket to getting this done, is allowing them in the kitchen to help prepare all these meals, they also help prepare the grocery list and assist in shopping with the groceries.

I put together an awesome crossword puzzle that we tackled on our first day of China. With each word found, it was like a mini victory for the kids! After we were through with this, we used the word list, to research each word and get to know what they all meant and how they related to this fantastic Country.

We try to learn a little bit of the language in some way, usually in the numbers and some aspects of the alphabet. I like to make up a dot to dot page and it's usually pretty simple. As we connect 1 dot to the next, we always say the number out loud in that language.

To work on our Chinese writing skills, I covered the kitchen table in Kraft paper and let the kids draw any symbols they could remember. This was an AWESOME activity that lasted well into the week. Even I had a blast writing and coloring. You should definitely do this to your table, to add a little variety!

Studying the Zodiac was the hands down favorite for everyone! They loved locating their year in all of the numbers on the calendar and then listening to what it all meant! I then took those symbols above and printed out the sheet twice. Each child was able to color 8 of them and then we glued the page to card stock and laminated it. Next, we cut each shape out in the same size and created our own Memory Game!

Seeing as how dragons play a big part of Chinese history, we used an egg carton and pipe cleaners to create our own. It was amazing how much more we did!! We made our own Great Wall, took in some fun movies on Netflix about China and even went to a Chinese restaurant. I hope you had fun in this great Country as well. My 5 year old son, has known since he was 3 that he wanted to go to college in London, my oldest has always flip flopped back and forth between what strikes her fancy, this past week, she said China is exactly where she wants to go! I love how they are having a blast learning and discovering new places!

We are now on our way to Japan! Leaving China this morning, we will travel  1300 miles and be on our plan for 2 hours and 45 minutes. Our first destination is Tokyo and we plan on having a blast! We plenty planned, that we have already gotten started!! Between the landmarks, the language and the food I don't even know where to start! In fact we are grabbing sushi for lunch today! Yay! I will update you all soon on our entire plan for Japan!

Virtual Destinations and Beyond! India to China

Namaste! India last week was an absolute blessing. It was truly amazing and so much fun. We fell short of some of things we wanted to do, but not to worry we will still squeeze them in at some point in time!

Did you know that it took 1,000 elephants to carry all the materials for the Taj Mahal when it was built about 370 years ago? We colored our own Taj Mahals and ours were so colorful, that I think they would fit right in in the bright and colorful Country of India!

Rubber is a large export of India! We took 2 normal household ingredients and made our own rubber blobs!  These were fun to play with, but we couldn't get them to bounce! If we had added corn starch, they would have had more shape and enough dexterity to bounce about 1 foot high! This is one of the projects we will attempt later!

Curry Chicken was a success and many of my friends were surprised to hear the kids talking about how good it was at our play date on Friday! I always tell them that if you let kids in the kitchen, they will always try (and most often like), anything that they cook! Yes, the process took us longer than it would had I been alone, but we had fun, made great food and ever lasting memories! My kid's eat all kinds of food in restuarants and at home and that's because I have always let them cook in the kitchen, pull weeds in the garden, pick their own plants to grow and even cut their own herbs! Kids just want to be included!

In India, they dance and tell stories with their hands, while wearing rows and rows of bells on ankles and wrists! We made our own with pipe cleaners and these were a fast favorite! They wore these the entire day and then some the next.

I printed out a plain flag of India and read the kid's a simple description and with this description, they were challenged to color the flag as it should be. It was a great test in Listening Skills! They loved learning as many facts as they could absorb:

 The Flag of India. The colours are saffron, white and green. The navy blue wheel in the center of the flag has a diameter approximately the width of the white band and is called Ashoka's Dharma Chakra, with 24 spokes (after Ashoka, the Great). Each spoke depicts one hour of the day, portraying the prevalence of righteousness all 24 hours of it. 

Our trip was enchanting for sure! There is so much more that we did, you can look at the sheet I made up for our fellow travelers HERE! Thank you so much for joining us, it's time for another plane ride!

Ni hao!

Our flight from New Delhi, India to Hong Kong, China is 4 hours and 51 minutes. We left early in the morning, so that we can arrive in the afternoon. The time difference is only 2 days, so there is not any jet lag to worry about! We have so much planned for this little trip and we are even hoping to squeeze in a trip to China Town, but it's a busy week, so not too sure if we will make it.

I will have the kids build their own Great Wall of China, while I read some facts about the longest structure ever built. 

My kids studied Chinese last year, so they are more than ready to tackle the numbers we usually do in each Country! I've also added in the alphabet for them too! We will look at the Chinese the Chinese Zodiac and see if the kids can find their birth years and read the information about it! 

We also plan on making a dragon! So much to think of and do, we can't wait to get started! I will share more as the week goes on and of course next Monday! Thank you for following along with us!

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