HS Review: China and Japan

Our Life

[image source_type=”attachment_id” source_value=”2949″ align=”left” size=”medium” autoHeight=”true”]Woohoo!! I will be linking in later than normal because we have a family retreat to Charlotte. Yay!! We are ready for a break in our schedules and for the refreshment of a water park hotel 😉 It was wonderful! I learned a new tool for determining my strengths and plan to give it to my children as well, someday. We had a blast at Great Wolf Lodge, always do!! The food was great and plentiful, the water park entertained my children for hours, and I nearly flew off a tube going down a water slide that I will never, ever, EVER, go down again in my life 😦

We also lived through another SC snow storm. This time I felt more prepared and we had a ball! One thing I learned while living in Alaska: When God gives excess snow/ice, it’s an invitation to make homemade ice cream. So we did, using my Grandmother’s recipe!! We had cake to celebrate hubby’s PT test and made Pretzel Dogs for supper. It was fun and a great way to get most of us involved with supper making. I just need to remember to make more than I do 😦 They go too fast.

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Our Homeschool

This week, we finished up our 2nd Unit with Tapestry of Grace (we are slightly behind, long story) and are heading into the 1840’s in our study of history. There are some very short term Presidents during this section of US History. While we were enjoying the Jacksonian era of development and patriotism, Britain was struggling with Asia over 2 separate Opium Wars! Our own country was ramping up heading towards a Civil War. It has been very interesting to study the American Civil War. The seeds of Secession were sown long before Abraham Lincoln became President. They began with an imposed tax that was supposed to help boost the economy of the Northern Factories, but primarily affected the Southern plantations. I highly recommend reading as much from all sides of the years before the Civil War. It’s not the cut-and-dry issue that was fed to me in history classes.

History:

~ Millard Fillmore was not a popular President at the time, due to his anti-slavery stance

~ First Lady Abigail Fillmore began the library at the White House, being a schoolteacher, she was appalled at the lack of one in the President’s Mansion

 

Books:

 

Videos:

• Wild China: excellent series on Amazon Prime. Each episode is 50 minutes in length, but the scenery, history, and narration were excellent. We watched ep. 1 & 4 for the culture, topography, and religion aspects.
• Japan: short and sweet look at the Japanese people and island. Amazon movie.
• Hudson Taylor: dramatic interpretation of the missionary to the Chinese. Amazon video
• Millard Fillmore: 13th President of the United States. A more personal look at President Fillmore can be seen here.
• Whispers of Angels: Excellent hour long video highlighting the Underground Railroad and the people who made it possible. Some sensationalism, not all states had the same slave laws, historians always have an ax to grind.
• Commadore Matthew Perry: short video highlighting this Commodore’s work in opening Japan for trade with other countries. While not completely isolated, this opened trade to many of the world powers of the time. Foul language in the comment section under the Youtube video, keep from small children.

To fully embrace our study on China and Japan, we ate some yummy stir fry this week. I love this stuff!! My favorite is a crock pot version of beef and broccoli from Pinterest. The kids even made homemade crab rangoons!

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For our activity this week, the kids worked on writing their names in Chinese characters. I found a fantastic website (Zhonweng) that helped us do this as well as explaining the history of the written Chinese language.

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Video..

I am sure you have seen this video already. My sister sent this to me and I loved it!