Chinese Dragons-Redux

Chinese Dragon in oil pastel on 18" X 24" construction paper

Though it is past Chinese New Year, we happened to end up in Medieval China this week in our history curriculum- The Story of The World. As it worked out, I was also supposed to teach an "Art in the Classroom" for private school 7th and 8th graders today that would be focused on China, but a sick child(mine) derailed that. So since the lesson was already done, here it is! I would suggest giving kids a square template to start so that everyone is "on the same page" in size and proportions. (Better to avoid the dragon that looks more like a tiny lizard- hey didn't Confucius say that too?)

You can click on any of these steps to make them bigger

Unit Study Ideas

Math- There is nothing better for fractions than doubling, tripling, and halving a recipe! So find a great(and simple) Chinese food recipe and try it out! Let your students figure out how much of each ingredient to use. If you don't actually need to do it for your own family- pretend that this is a meal for the court of Kublai Khan!(For a language arts connection, have them write a story about how the great Khan kept changing the party plans, and how the cook had to keep changing the recipes- include all the math work!)

History- Learn about these great historical figures- Ghengis Khan, Kublai Khan, and Marco Polo. You can also learn about the Silk Road and the Great Wall of China. (My boys like to use every lego they have to see how "great" a wall they can make!(Connect this back to math by measuring the space it takes up, counting the legos, and then estimating how many legos it would take to make a lego great wall a mile long.

Science-The Chinese are responsible for many great inventions, printing books, gunpowder, chemical fog weapons, and the weaving of silk thread from silk worms into cloth. You could learn more about any of these and maybe even raise some silk worms of your own! There are also many endangered animals from China, including the panda. You could learn more about them and what we can do to help.

Language Arts- Fairy tales seem to be a universal thing. There are many Chinese versions of fairy tales we know well, Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella are just two that come to mind. Why not take an American Tall Tale and give it a Chinese spin!
You could even try your hand out at writing in Chinese with a bamboo brush and ink or make your own Chinese Printing blocks by carving letters in rubber erasers and then use them to print out your story. (As time consuming as that might sound- it was light years faster than it took monks to write out illuminated manuscripts by hand!)
Have fun!
If you have any other ideas(done or not done yet)
please feel free to leave them in the comments
:-)

Here are some book selections you may find useful,
check your local library to see if they have them.