About 2,200 years ago, King Cheng of Ch'in conquered all of the little countries of China, but everyone spoke, wrote, and weighed things differently.
One day a man, caked with mud ran into King Cheng's palace and was thrown at King Cheng's feet and said, "The Mongols have conquered my village, I alone have escaped". The King roared, "I must stop these barbarians!" King Cheng asked his royal advisors for any ideas. "They are cruel", say Li Ssu, the Prime Minister. "They are tricky", added Chao Kao. "And they are strong", said Grand General Meng Tian. "They will soon conquer China", said King Cheng's son. "I have an idea", said King Cheng, "I will build a great wall, but we have many walls, none of these can stop the Mongols, I will build a great wall, all the way from the west to the east of China, it will stop the Mongols".
King Cheng ordered his soldiers to go and get lots of men out of their homes to build the great wall. Then with lots of men and soldiers they started building. They made bamboo frames and put dirt in them, then they pounded it to make it solid, and stuck stones on it, then they moved along and did the same thing again. Every 100 yards they made a big tower that they would shoot arrows at the Mongols from if they came. After 10 years of labour the wall was finished. When the Mongols saw the wall, they did not attack. "I have done it!", said King Cheng. "I have saved China!"
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Shapes and Counting
Ciara is so ready to draw, write or paint, I am sure she would happily spend all day doing it. So she is so pleased to be doing all these activities to learn her shapes.
Potato printing, she spent ages doing this.
Gluing shapes into a picture, most of these shapes she cut out herself.
And one that has been a favourite with all the kids, counting M&M's.
Potato printing, she spent ages doing this.
Gluing shapes into a picture, most of these shapes she cut out herself.
And one that has been a favourite with all the kids, counting M&M's.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Great Wall of China
Not sure if this link will be up for long, but the kids have started watching this show on The Great Wall of China:
Learning about China
We enjoyed our study of The Netherlands so much that we were all keen to learn another about another country. Niamh picked China.
We have made a country file so this is the front page for China - Eden's.
Niamh's.
We have been reading about The Great Wall of China, this is a sketch of the emperor at the time - Niamh's sketch, Niamh is becoming more confident to sketch rather than to trace.
Eden's sketch.
The lovely thing about these country studies is that we bake things that we normally would not bake. These are very tasty chinese biscuits called sesame cookies. I love the look on Niamh's face here, she so enjoying cutting up biscuits.
Jude rolling it in the sesame seeds.
Don't they look yummy? Eden is the only one who wouldn't eat them because they had almond extract in.
We have made a country file so this is the front page for China - Eden's.
Niamh's.
We have been reading about The Great Wall of China, this is a sketch of the emperor at the time - Niamh's sketch, Niamh is becoming more confident to sketch rather than to trace.
Eden's sketch.
The lovely thing about these country studies is that we bake things that we normally would not bake. These are very tasty chinese biscuits called sesame cookies. I love the look on Niamh's face here, she so enjoying cutting up biscuits.
Jude rolling it in the sesame seeds.
Don't they look yummy? Eden is the only one who wouldn't eat them because they had almond extract in.
Light study - mixing colours
We learned that the primary colours of light are different to those of paint, and they mix differently too.
The girls made a chart of all the colours, and we put it on a dynamo to see if we could make white.
Not bad Niamh, nearly white.
Niamh made cyan from blue and green.
We also had a light optic that shone different colours and we experimented making different colours by mixing them in the tube, this was magenta which didn't come over very clearly on the camera.
Their light charts.
The girls made a chart of all the colours, and we put it on a dynamo to see if we could make white.
Not bad Niamh, nearly white.
Niamh made cyan from blue and green.
We also had a light optic that shone different colours and we experimented making different colours by mixing them in the tube, this was magenta which didn't come over very clearly on the camera.
Their light charts.
The Magic Treehouse
Jude's reading is still coming on nicely, and he is really enjoying this series at the moment.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Some books we have enjoyed
The girls have been enjoying these books by Patricia St John, they are Christian novels.
David Livingstone is a missionary story we have shared as a family, I loved reading about his adventures in Southern Africa, so many memories of African landscape were evoked in my mind.
Although we have read about Corrie, Eden was keen to read it again, in fact she often reads books over and over.
Some more Eden has enjoyed. She says there are quite a lot of words she doesn't understand in some of these books, so now she has started a vocabulary notebook while she is reading of any words she doesn't understand and we get to talk about them and she writes down the definition the next day.
Another 2 books about remarkable women that we have enjoyed reading together
David Livingstone is a missionary story we have shared as a family, I loved reading about his adventures in Southern Africa, so many memories of African landscape were evoked in my mind.
Although we have read about Corrie, Eden was keen to read it again, in fact she often reads books over and over.
Some more Eden has enjoyed. She says there are quite a lot of words she doesn't understand in some of these books, so now she has started a vocabulary notebook while she is reading of any words she doesn't understand and we get to talk about them and she writes down the definition the next day.
Another 2 books about remarkable women that we have enjoyed reading together
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