This year is the Chinese Year of the Horse. What does that mean?
How did the idea of the 12 animals come about? Tiger attended a workshop at the British Museum that focused on the traditions of the Chinese New Year. The workshop took place in Room 33 where the children listened to stories about the Chinese zodiac and identified symbols of the zodiacs in the artefacts in the room.
Back at home, we learned more about the background and details of the artefacts we saw in the museum by exploring the Ancient China and the Early Imperial China websites.
Tiger also verified the story of the Chinese zodiac he heard at the museum by reading the following book:
and watching the following clip:
The Chinese zodiac is significant to the Chinese people in that not only is it a way of keeping track of the passing of each year, each animal is also believed to bear certain personality characteristics that are shared by those who are born under the same zodiac sign -- a similar concept to the Western astrology. Such characteristics featured strongly in the traditional Chinese society to determine one's compatibility with another in terms of business dealings and even marriage.
Tiger wants to remember the sequence of the 12 zodiac animals so I printed out the template found here so that he can refer to them as he recites a Chinese rhyme to help him remember the sequence.
The following clip is a very creative depiction of the story of the 12 zodiac animals using a combination of Chinese ink painting and the pictograph characters:
Since the clip above got us curious about the development of the Chinese characters from ancient pictographs to the present-day script, we found it useful to watch a few clips on the zodiac characters' developments, such as:
Following that, I made a sequencing and matching game for Tiger to match the 12 zodiac
animals in pictures to their corresponding forms of Chinese
characters in order of evolution from ancient pictographs to modern scripts, i.e.
clip art zodiac animals --> paper cutting zodiac animals --> Oracle Bone script (甲骨文) -->
Small Scale script (小篆) --> traditional Chinese characters (繁体字) --> simplified Chinese characters (简体字)
--> pinyin (拼音)
The Oracle Bone script is one of the earliest form of Chinese writing. Its discovery is absolutely fascinating, as shown in the following 3-part documentary:
Looking at Oracle Bones inscriptions (where the bones are sometimes called "dragon bones") also inspired Tiger to investigate the differences between the Western dragon and the Chinese dragon in terms of:
- different social perspectives between the Western and Chinese dragons
- different depictions between the Western and Chinese dragons
- different dwellings between the Western and Chinese dragons
- different physical features between the Western and Chinese dragons
Being born in the year of the monkey, Tiger felt it would be highly appropriate for him to watch an animated film about his favourite character, Sun Wukong, as a finale to his study of the Chinese zodiac.
This post is linked up to:
- Hip Homeschool Hop (2/11/14)
- Chinese Activities Link Up
- History and Geography Meme: Fun Ways to Use Maps with Your Kids
- Educational and Entertaining - Chinese Activities for Kids
- Collage Friday - All About Love {and Ice}
- Weekly Wrap-up: The One with More Snow
- The Homeschool Mother's Journal (2/15/14)
- Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #13
This is such thorough study! I always look longingly at your field trips and work shops. You two have so much fun!
ReplyDeleteIt's easier to get around with only one child, so we try to go out as much as possible. :-)
DeleteYes, so wonderfully thorough! Thanks for all the great resources - wish I had them last year! :) Thanks again, Hwee, for linking up :)
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome, Marie. Your year-long China study has inspired many others, me being one of them, to take a closer look at China's history and culture. I really like the way you take a whole year to really study in depth one culture. :-)
DeleteI love your use of the internet for your lessons. I find that I go to YouTube for castle tours, and what life looks like through a microscope and any manner of other odd and wonderful things. How fortunate are we to live in a time when so much great information is right at our fingertips?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you, Liesl! We use the internet a lot to find different sources of information and materials, that are otherwise difficult to access from the traditional sources such as books. It has certainly made our learning more interesting and dynamic! :-)
DeleteThis looks like it has been a fun study. I have a sister in law from Malaysia with a Chinese background, and she has taught my kids a good bit about the Chinese years.
ReplyDeleteIt's easier and more intimate to have someone with a Chinese background to teach children about the Chinese New Year. Your children are lucky indeed. :-) Thanks for stopping by, Leah.
DeleteWe read several versions of the Great Race and my kids really thought it was interesting how the story changed from version to version.
ReplyDeleteI think you'll find that it is very normal to have many versions of ancient stories, because they are so old and have been passed down through the generations mostly orally so the stories will alter from person to person. Interesting though, isn't it? :-)
DeleteThanks for all your Chinese New Year's posts. My son has been watching your videos and soon I will be searching for the books.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know, Julie. It's rewarding to know that another homeschooling child is benefiting from what we've done here. :-) I hope your son finds the lesson interesting.
DeleteI watched these videos with my 7 year old today. After watching we looked up our signs and those of our relatives. We laughed a lot when we found my husband was a pig.
ReplyDeleteThe zodiac sign of pig is associated with prosperity and success to the Chinese, so it's not as bad as you'd think! :-)
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