Chinese History Lesson -- Back to School Ideas

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me these books free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

So far we have had lessons on building imaginations, books for young learners, and science. Today we are going to look at world history with books about Chinese history. We will start with What Was It Like, Mr. Emperor? by Chiu Kwong-chiu and Eileen Ng and translation by Ben Wang. 

Chinese Zodiac and Chinese New Year Book Reviews

 Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of these books free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. They also sent me a copy to giveaway! As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

This post is part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs Chinese New Year Blog Series and Giveaway. More details about all of this below including the giveaway!!

Seal Nakhon Si ThammaratBy Fine Arts Department (กรมศิลปากร) of Thailand. 

[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Women in Professional Baseball for Women's History Month

As I mentioned last week in my Women Inventors post, I see Women's History Month as a time to show Hazel women who were successful doing many different things. This year I found a bunch of books about women playing professional baseball. I remembered the movie A League of Their Own and I thought how fun to teach her about women in a non-traditional role and in a sport. It also helps that she has been hearing about the Boston Red Sox at school. 

Chinese Tea Party -- Tea Parties Around the World

Disclosure: I was sent these books to review free of charge in exchange for an honest review. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.  

Now a series of Tea Parties Around the World would not be complete without looking at Chinese tea. Let's face it, the China is where tea began. January seemed like the perfect time for us to look at China since we were looking at the Chinese New Year already. I will admit writing this post has been intimidating me and I keep putting it off. How can I do the long history of tea in China justice? I have decided just to share with you my references and what we enjoyed as we looked at China and the history of tea. 

Book Review: All About Indonesia

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Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of this book free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Do you homeschool or like to teach your child about different cultures around the world like I do? Here is the perfect book for you. It is  All About Indonesia: Stories, Songs and Crafts for Kids by Linda Hibbs. This book covers so much of the Indonesian culture, history, and more. It is a wonderful resource.

Hazel and I read it over several nights at bedtime. We usually read four books a night and counted each part we read as one book for the night. We read until she felt she couldn't take in anymore information on Indonesia. After we finished she did tell me she enjoyed the book and then we had to try some of the crafts and a recipe. Indonesia is so diverse with all the different islands forming one country. The book goes through the different types of places in the country. Through out the book there are also blurbs with words in Bahasa Indonesia and English. The book is full of photographs as well as details of every day life in Indonesia. Throughout the book is information on animals, plants, food and more. There are also many activities, crafts and recipes. There are ideas like making your own volcano, making your own batik, shadow puppets, and more. 

We started with making our own batik. However I thought I would simplify it for Hazel and do it on paper with crayon as our wax. However our crayons did not work well. For some reason it did not resist the paint like I thought it would. Oh, well we tried. We also looked at some batik fabrics I have in my collection.

Hazel also wanted to make the shadow puppets. I have been promising her a shadow puppet theater since we went to a shadow puppet show months ago. They provide pictures to make shadow puppets of a kancil and a crocodile to go with the traditional story that is shared in the book. This story is often performed with shadow puppets in Indonesia. 

We also tried making the dadar gulung. We were not very successful, but had fun making it and trying it. First we made the coconut filling on the stove.

After the filling was finished we began the pancakes. Hazel helped mix the batter. It is dyed green and traditionally it would be dyed with pandan leaf paste, but we used regular food coloring.

I cooked the pancakes, but could not get them thin enough. They are suppose to be very thin and even like crepes.

Since they were not thin enough, they also were not large enough and we had trouble rolling them properly. However we tried them and Hazel loved the filling and I liked the whole thing.

So this was our experience exploring Indonesia. This book has a little bit of everything to give the whole view just like traveling there. It is a wonderful quality as all the books from Tuttle Publishing are. It is the perfect book for anyone looking to do a project or teach about Indonesia. 

For more ideas and books from Indonesia and/or from Tuttle Publishing, check out:

• The Gift of the Crocodile: An Indonesian Cinderella Tale 
• All In Just One Cookie 
• Asian Kites 
• Mei-Mei's Lucky Birthday Noodles 
• Mulan and My First Book of Chinese Words

Mary and Mary Magdalene for Women's History Month

With today being Palm Sunday and Easter a week away, I thought we would learn more about two of the women who loved Jesus, his mother, Mary, and Mary Magdalene. Besides the Bible I wanted to share with Hazel what is known about these to Biblical women. I found a few books on each of them. We have only been able to read one from each person, but I found these books on Amazon or available at our public library.

Disney Princesses Sightings and Peg Dolls

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Disney World Princesses

As you know we went to Disney World in June. Hazel loved meeting all the princesses. There is a McDonalds near our house that has had many of the princesses and I have taken her to see them there, but they only have the white ones since the actress is white. So on her must see list were Jasmine, Pocahontas and Tiana. Of course whenever we saw a chance to meet a character, Hazel wanted to even if she had no clue who the character was. We spent a lot of time waiting in character lines. I think she has now decided the princesses at McDonalds are actresses, but the ones in Disney World are the real ones.

To remember our visits I made Hazel some peg dolls for the princesses. (I still need to make a Merida and hope to make a mermaid Ariel one as well.) I got the idea from Pinterest. Apparently there are many out there and I cannot find the exact pin to give you the source I originally saw. I however played with their hair in different ways.

Now one of my favorite photos of Hazel meeting the princesses is this one of her and Rapunzel. She has just told Rapunzel that she dressed as her for Halloween.

Our count for princess sightings: 

Cinderella we saw 3 times.

Aurora/Sleeping Beauty we saw 3 times.

Belle we saw 2 times.

Ariel we saw 2 times (once in a dress and once as a mermaid).

Jasmine we saw 1 time.

Pocahontas we saw 1 time.

Tiana we saw 1 time.

Merida we saw 1 time (and it was after the heavy downpours so we were soaked).

Rapunzel we saw 1 time.

Snow White we saw 1 time. (Sorry, I cropped out her friend since he was in every picture of Hazel with Snow White.)

We did not see Mulan since we do not know her story and Hazel really has no idea who she is.

Now Hazel knows who the princesses are, but does not know all the stories behind them. She also has not seen many of the Disney movies since she is scared easily. She likes to watch Cinderella and Pocahontas, but that is about it for those movies. I won't let her even try Snow White or Aladdin. I remember seeing Snow White when I was five and I had nightmares for weeks afterward. My mother was not happy with my father for taking me. For Hazel the princesses are about beautiful dresses. She is at the age of loving dresses and the fancier the better. I remember being like that too, so I do not worry about how this will influence her since I know I grew up the same way.

Mei-Mei's Lucky Birthday Noodles Book Review

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Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of these books free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Today I get to review a wonderful book that is being released later this summer. The book is called Mei-Mei's Lucky Birthday Noodles written by Shan-Shan Chen. The book has beautiful illustrations by Heidi Goodman. I find all the books  from Tuttle Publishing so beautifully put together in the stories, illustrations and quality. It is rare that I call books beautiful, but these books really are.

This wonderful story is about Mei-Mei and her birthday. Her day starts by her going into her parents' bedroom to wake them up. They immediately wish her a happy birthday. They both talk about how her birthday is an extra special day since it was the day they were able to bring her home from China. As parents who adopted this young girl this day meant so much to them and you can feel their love for her through the story. Mei-Mei asks her mother about making her lucky birthday noodles. Her parents have been trying to keep some of her Chinese traditions so Mei-Mei will know them. One is making lucky birthday noodles. Mei-Mei and her mother get to work chopping and cooking. There are mushrooms, green onions, carrots and bok choy to chop. The beef has to be sliced. Then the wok is pulled out to start the cooking. 

Mei-Mei asks questions about many things having to do with the noodles and her mother is able to tell her some of the Chinese cultural beliefs. As a result the reader learns them as well. This story is a wonderful book for someone wanting to learn about the Chinese culture as well as a book for any child who is adopted. The book ends with a recipe to make the lucky birthday noodles. We of course had to try the recipe. I made it for dinner the other night. Hazel was too busy enjoying her wading pool to help. (Our air conditioner was broken, so she needed to cool off anyway.) It was an easy recipe and both Steve and I loved it. Hazel thought it had too many vegetables and I think she really meant too much bok choy, which she does not like. She however loved the beef that was in it.

And yes, Hazel and I ate the noodles with chopsticks to make it truly a Chinese experience. This amazing book is being released on August 26th. You can pre-order it at Tuttle, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

For more Chinese books, crafts, etc. check out:

• Mulan
• Asian Kites
• Chinese Cinderella Tales
• Lunar New Year and The Year of the Horse Book Review
• Julie and the Black Belt Book Series Review
• Happy Chinese New Year
• Chinese Instruments for New Year Celebration
• Global Culture

She Takes a Stand Book Review

Disclosure: Chicago Review Press gave me a copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.  As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Now it may be the way my mother brought me up, but I love reading stories about strong women. I also love teaching Hazel about strong women. When I first saw the book, She Takes a Stand: 16 Fearless Activists Who Have Changed the World by Michael Elsohn Ross, I thought I might be able to read about each woman to Hazel. We tried this, but several of them were beyond her true understanding and she was always asking questions about what it meant. We decided we would have to save it for when she was older, but I got to enjoy reading it. 

Roar-Choo! -- Book Review & Giveaway

 

Disclosure: I was sent a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am working with The Children's Book Review and Charlotte Cheng to bring you this review and giveaway.

Have you ever felt like you were getting sick but needed to keep getting things done? Or perhaps you have a child who doesn't slow down even though he/she is obviously getting sick? Today's book is perfect for this situation. It is a fun picture book about a dragon who is getting sick but doesn't want to quit. The book is Roar-Choo! by Charlotte Cheng and illustrated by Dan Santat.

Multicultural Monday: All About China -- Book Review

 Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation. 

Today I am going to share our exploration of China. The fourth book in Tuttle's All About series has recently been published. It is All About China by Allison "Aixin" Branscombe. Like the other books: Indonesia, Japan and Korea, All About China gives a wonderful overview of what it is like to live in China. The book is full of information, stories, crafts and recipes. In the beginning the reader is introduced to two Chinese children who share their lives throughout the book.