Begin at the Beginning

One of the things tha I try to do in our homeschool is to go through history in a chronological order.  In the elementary grades (Cycle 1, according to some factions of the Classical education model), we started from the ancient world.  Now that we are in the middle grades (Cycle 2), I want to start at the beginning again, but this time I want to start at the beginning of life, i.e. prehistory.

One can go as far back as the Big Bang Theory, or the birth of the earth, but that, to me, is stretching too far into science so I decided that we will just start from the evidence of life, i.e. fossils.  It is very handy that our patio is laid with natural stones that contain fossilised plant imprints, so that is a very good place to start.

It doesn't take much to pique Tiger's curiosity so I directed him to the relevant books to acquire the necessary background information,

before breaking out a fossil-making kit to make plaster casts of various fossils.

Tiger also made a scaled-down cardboard model of a Hibbertopterus, which is a two-metre long prehistoric sea scorpion whose trackway (made 330 million years ago) was found preserved in sandstone in Fife.

In our typical fashion of homeschooling, we wanted to see whether we could find any real fossils ourselves so we visited a quarry in Gloucestershire to try our luck.

There was a whole lot of stone-staring that day... we were at a quarry after all.

Take for example the following: do you see anything special about these stones?  Are they just some rocks?

How about now?  Can you spot the fossilised mollusks embedded in the stones?

Once we knew what we were looking at/for, thanks to the very helpful geologists with whom we tagged along on the trip, we started finding fossilised bivales everywhere on the site!  If they were not exciting enough, I'd just like to mention that they are from the Jurssaic period (205 - 102 million years ago) too.

I don't know about you, but I personally think it's very cool to actually find something that is hundreds of millions of years old.  That got us to contemplate the geological changes that have taken place on earth through the ages, such as the simple fact that the land that we were standing on was once the sea floor where these prehistoric creatures dwelt in.

We brought two big bags of fossils home with us that day.  Once they were thoroughly cleaned and dried, we identified each one using a fossil identification chart.  The most interesting one that we found was the gryphaea, commonly known as the devil's toetail from Victorian folklore.

After identification, Tiger made notes in his science notebook to record his observation by a variety of methods that include drawing and taking rubbings.

Below are a few samples from his notes on fossils:

We watched First Life for review, and to check whether we had any gaps in our knowledge so far.  While we have learnt much from books and especially on the field trip, there is nothing quite like watching a good documentary to bring the prehistoric habitats to life.

The link from the study of prehistoric fossils to present day is that of fossil fuel, which we read about using the following books.

However, the greatest outcome of our study so far has been that Tiger is now the proud owner of his own sizeable collection of fossils, which he is only too happy to talk about all day to anyone who'd listen.  I therefore have been on the receiving end of a much-needed education on the various fossils that include:

• their identification
• where they were found
• the geological time period in which the original creatures existed

  

* This post contains affliate links to products that we have bought and used ourselves, and that I recommend.  I earn a little bit of money, at no extra cost to you, when you make a purchase through the link.  Thank you for your support.  :-)

This post is linked up to:

1. Finishing Strong ~ Homeschooling the Middle & High School Years #74
2. Collage Friday: A Day in the Life of Our Homeschool
3. Weekly Wrap-Up: The last one before Texas
4. Hip Homeschool Hop: 2/2/16 - 2/6/16

Chongyang Festival

The above clip is a very famous verse, 《醉花阴》，written by the Song dynasty female poet, Li Qingzhao (李清照）, about how badly she missed her husband who was away on official business on the Chongyang Festival (重阳节).

Chongyang Festival falls on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar, hence it is also called the Double Ninth Festival.

The festival took place a week ago on Wednesday.  As is customary with traditional Chinese festivals, there are special food to go with it, so I spent a whole day in the kitchen making the various desserts from scratch, as these specific festive food cannot be bought in the UK.

These are by no means the only type of dessert to be had in the traditional sense.  I only made what I can manage to do with the ingredients I could find:

1. Chrysanthemum Tea (菊花茶）
2. Chrysanthemum Crisp （菊花酥）
3. Goji Chrysanthemum Cake (枸杞菊花糕）
4. Tricolor Chongyang Cake (三色重阳糕） 
5. Chestnut Chongyang Cake (桂花板栗重阳糕)

Tiger's favourites are (2), (4) and (5).

Besides eating specific food, there are so specific customs associated with the Chongyang Festival.

Usually the Chinese people will go for a hike on the hills or mountains on this day to be in touch with nature.  Since we don't have hills or mountains near us, Tiger and I got our nature fix by doing some gardening.

You might have noticed that the chrysanthemum flower features very prominently at the Chongyang Festival -- hence Tiger's gardening task was to pot a bunch of chrysanthemum.  To the Chinese people, the chrysanthemum flower symbolises elegance and courage.  It is therefore a significant symbol of autumn for us.

Tiger asked whether there is a poem that goes with the Chongyang Festival, to which I replied that there are many but the most beautiful is the verse by Li Qingzhao, which is shown in the clip at the beginning of this post.  He is not ready to learn it yet though, as the depth of emotions described in the verse and the masterful use of language are beyond his comprehension at present.

Exploring Slavery

It started out innocently enough, with us learning about a Victorian explorer/missionary, David Livingstone, and his travels in Africa.

A few chapters into the main book that we were reading for this topic, we came across the concept of slavery, which quickly turned our attention onto the transatlantic slave trade that was undergoing huge changes in the Victorian times when slavery had been going on for centuries but people were just starting to make progess in abolishing the practice, openly at least.  As we saw last month when learning about chocolate, slavery still exists today in various forms.

We attended a workshop on the abolition of the slave trade at the National Gallery, where we were shown a few paintings that traced the process of abolition.

While the art gallery session gave us a good overview into the abolition process towards the end of the slave trade, we wanted to understand more of this sad history of human trafficking, so we attended a Slavery Study Day at the Museum of London Docklands.


This museum is a very relevant to the learning of the transatlantic slave trade, specifically of the sugar trade, because the building was the former warehouse for the sugar that came to London from West Africa, where the sugar canes were grown and where slaves were used on those plantations.  On the third floor of the museum is the London, Sugar & Slavery gallery where we saw some harrowing instruments of enslavement and cruelty.

The various sessions throughout the study day were very interesting and informative.  We started with an introductory session where we were given an overview of the slave trade, how it began, why West Africa in particular, people's attitudes at that time, and how it ended.

There was also an object handling session where we learnt about Africa pre-and-post slave trade through various objects that symbolise the produce of that continent (e.g. sugar cane, tobacco) and its varied culture (e.g. small bronze sculptures from Benin, gourd drums).  The main objective of the session is to dispel the misconceptions of early Europeans that dark-skinned people were sub-human or that they had an inferior/non-existing culture, which I think the children understands very well.

The most interesting session of that day, for me, was the poetry session where the workshop leader engaged the children in various language exercises to reflect upon what they had heard, seen, and felt in the previous sessions, in relation to the topic of the day, i.e. slavery.  The children then had to write a short poem about slavery.  There was a family of African descent in attendance that day, and those children wrote the poetic verses on the topic that day, far more insightful and sensitively written than anyone else in the room.  I wonder whether the topic being very close to their personal ancestral history has something to do with their ability to feel its relevance much deeper than the rest of us. 

Considering the gravity of this topic, I think the museum has handled the displays and the sessions with great care and sensitivity.  I was very interested in the reaction of the African family to this topic so I observed them for the whole day, in addition to paying attention to the sessions, of course.  It seemed to me that the mother was slightly uncomfortable with certain exhibits in the gallery and with some points that were discussed in the various sessions.  I imagine it must feel strange for someone of African descent to hear about the history of slavery from Europeans.  I personally would be very interested to hear the British side of the story about the Opium Wars but since this topic is not in the National Curriculum, I would not have the pleasure of seeing how it is taught to children in this country, if at all.

In Hot Pursuit

Following our recent study of Sherlock Holmes, Tiger and I decide to keep up the interest in all things mystery.

I chanced upon a company that sells various themed mystery/treasure trails around the country.  The trails look quite interesting and challenging, and appears to offer a fun day out, so we tried out the one that is set in Convent Garden area.

Tiger was keen to take the lead for solving the mystery.  The trail is designed such that we are only told the starting point (this particular trail started outside the Leicester Square tube station), and have to find our way around by following the clues given in each step of the trail, which are in turned only revealed when we solve each cryptic code accurately.  We thought it would be very easy, but we realised that we were totally lost after three hours of walking around the side streets and narrow lanes in the Soho/Convent Garden vicinity and finding ourselves barely halfway through our trail.  The guideline on the trail says that it should take 1.5 to 2 hours to complete the trail.  Ooops.

Feeling very hot, bothered, and utterly defeated, we gave up for the day and went home to rethink our strategy for solving the mystery. 

We returned to complete the trail the next day, this time better prepared, both mentally and physically.

There must be something about wearing the Yorkshire flat cap that invoked Tiger's inner detective, as we were much more successful on our second attempt to complete the trail and hence solve the related mystery.  It took Tiger less than an hour to this time, and as we ended up in Convent Garden Market where there are many interesting sights to be seen, we spent the rest of the day congratulating ourselves for being super sleuths and rewarding ourselves with fantastic food found in the market.

Encouraged by our success at the Convent Garden trail, we then spent another fun day solving a second murder mystery, this time at Bankside.  I chose this location thinking that we would have a greater success because it has a shorter completion time of 1.5 hours, and that having been to that area many times we ought to know most of the places there.

Not wanting to take any chances this time, Tiger started studying the trail and working out the most efficient route once we got on the tube to get our first destination.

Our starting point this time is outside the London Bridge tube station, near the Southwark Cathedral.  This proved to be very interesting for me because we had mostly hung out on the St. Paul's Cathedral side of the river, so starting the trail from Southwark is an opportunity for us to explore a few new places.

And exploring and discovering new places we certainly did!  The trail took us through many significant, new-to-us landmarks that we did not know about or had not visited before.  Seeing new places is always exciting, especially when it is done in conjunction with delicious food, as we found when we were led to Borough Market.

It was Tiger's first visit to Borough Market, and the sights and sounds of the market fascinated him.  More importantly, we found a stall that sells Thai desserts and mango sticky rice which we both love to eat!

The trail gradually led us towards the side of the Thames that we are more familiar with, whereupon we walked past the Clink Prison Museum and Tiger wanted to go in to take a look.

I knew about this museum but did not take Tiger here for a visit when we studied Medieval England because I thought: (1) it looked more like a commerical attraction than a real, historical accurate museum, and (2) the content may be too gruesome and hence inappropriate for a young child.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only are the exhibits and artefacts historically accurate, the representation of this gruesome aspect of medieval history is not unnecessarily gory.  Tiger was fascinated by the exhibits, while I was slightly appalled by the inhumane use of certain instruments of punishment.

As we approached the end of the trail, we were brought to 'theatre-land' (at least in Tudor/Elizabethan times) and came upon the original site of the Globe Theatre, which was burned to the ground.  Although Tiger and I have visited the current Shakespeare's Globe theatre many times in the past, we have not been to the original site until now.  It is interesting to see that the site is now part of a compound inside a housing estate.  Not far from it stands the Rose Theatre, which was the first purpose-built theatre on Bankside (predating The Globe Theatre) in Tudor time.

We walked the trail at a very leisurely pace, so it took us nearly a whole day to complete it but we stopped and enjoyed our discovery of many previously unknown-to-us places as the clues took us down side streets or made us look closely at certain architectural and historical features along the way.

Easter Eggs and Dark Chocolate

We don't always do much for Easter.  The last time we did anything for it was two years ago, so it's time to decorate the eggs again!

We tried a few different methods of dyeing our eggs, with mixed results:

1. direct painting with food colouring - didn't work too well
2. direct painting with coloured pastes made of food colouring and bicarbonate of soda - didn't work either
3. marbling with nail polish - worked ok but very messy
4. marbling with ink - worked ok but the marbling ink stinks
5. soaking cracked eggs in coloured water - worked!

Needless to say, we were slightly disappointed to get little success compared to the amount of effort we had to put in to get a few half decent-looking eggs!  However, since I had the marbling ink out, Tiger then went on to do some 'proper' marbling on watercolour paper.

Tiger found the texture of the ink and the semi-random (one can manipuate the patterns made by the ink to some extent) patterns that it makes fascinating.  We both found the smell too strong and unpleasant though, so the pieces of marbled paper were left to dry outside for a few hours to get rid of the smell.

Since our dyed eggs haven't turned out too well, we thought we might have better results drawing them.

While we were drawing, Tiger wondered what the connection is between the chocolate eggs and Jesus.  We had talked about this before but he obviously needed some reminder, so I pointed him to the videos that we had watched two years ago.

As we watched the video about how the festival of Easter has evolved from the fertility goddess of ancient Mesopotamia through to the Anglo Saxon times, Tiger was intrigued by a piece of obscure information about an ancient manuscript, the Codex Sinaiticus. 

He then took it upon himself to look through the ancient Greek text on the British Library website, and spent the next hour and a half attempting to translate it from ancient Greek to modern English.  I did suggest to Tiger that he has a better chance of success at translating ancient Chinese texts since I can give him a hand at that but I can't help with ancient Greek.  Despite my offer, Tiger decided to have a go at translating the Codex anyway, and he got as far as translating the first stanza in 1.5 hours.  It was a slow, long-drawn process by the looks of it, but I think he's off to a good start.  In the process, Tiger taught himself much about ancient Christian history and theology, translation techniques, texts comparisons, and language rules (grammar, syntax, sentence structure).  It is all quite fascinating to watch.

Once he has had enough of translating, we resumed our happy research on Easter chocolate eggs and how they are made in the factory:

From the consumer perspective where we see chocolate eggs stacked along the shelves of supermarkets, we then moved slowly along the supply chain and traced the source of the main ingredient, cocoa beans.  What we found is not a happy situation at all:

Tiger was slightly upset -- as any naturally uncorrupted human being would be -- by what he saw in the documentary above, but I think it is important for him to start becoming aware that our relatively safe, first-world existence is not to be taken for granted, and that many people suffer injustice and exploitation every day.  Although we may not be able to offer a solution, at the very least we should not become part of the problem by sheltering ourselves in apathy and igorance.

Our Chinese New Year Week

The Chinese New Year ended on Thursday with the Lantern Festival (元宵节).  Compared to last year, my effort at this year's Chinese New Year celebration is somewhat lacklustre.  However, I console myself that we have at least managed to focus on having Chinese dishes this past week.

The recipes have been adjusted for our dietary requirements:

1. Braised sweet and sour spare ribs
2. Vegetable stir-fry
3. Stir-fry pork with noodles
4. Lemon coriander chicken
5. Soy sauce chicken
6. Slow cooker braised chinese pork

We also pulled out our copy of The Warlord's Puzzle to have a play with tangrams, a 7-piece puzzle from ancient China that Tiger had a go with nearly five years ago.

The appeal of the tangrams is its deceptive simplicity.  There are only three shapes and seven pieces.  However, as we have found, to solve the puzzles are not an easy task.  Tiger has been working through a tangrams puzzle book last week just for the fun of it.  At first, he was quite frustrated with hiimself for not being able to solve the puzzles immediately but after a few rounds, he started to be able to visualise how the different pieces can be combined together in numerous ways.  From then on, he was able to solve a few puzzles on his own.

I used the study guide that accompanies the book for activity ideas and the one that caught Tiger's interest most was that of writing a cinquain, which is a 5-line patterned poetry form that bears some resemblance to the nature poems written by ancient Chinese poets.

It appears that the patterned format of cinquains has a strong appeal to Tiger, so not only did he enthusiastically write three of them, he even went as far as editing and rewriting each one a few times before he was happy with the final result.  In the process of editing his various drafts, Tiger happily highlighted to me that he was employing the write-in-the-margin lesson that he has learnt from Tolkien not so long ago.

We had time to have another poetry tea with a Chinese snack (sesame cookies) in the week, so I taught Tiger to recite another Tang poem about spring: "Early Spring" (早春) by Han Yu (韩俞)

This poem describes the beautiful scene of a street in Chang'an (长安), the capital city during the Tang dynasty, in the early spring drizzle.  After having the meaning of the poem explained to him, Tiger was attracted to its sound and rhythm so he learnt the poem easily and quickily, and he even sang the poem alongside the clip above!  Poetry, regardless of the language it is written in, portrays a sense of linguistic beauty and mastery to its reader/listener.  I am very glad to see Tiger showing much joy and pride in reciting and translating classical Chinese poetry very well.  After all, having an intimate relationship with classical Chinese poetry is part of identifying with the soul of the Chinese culture.

This post is linked up to:

1. Creaive Kids Cultural Blog Hop #24 
2. Hip Homeschool Hop - 3/3/15
3. Finishing Strong #45 
4. History & Geography Meme #156
5. My Week in Review #27
6. Collage Friday: Refresh and Have Faith
7. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with winter and spring in the same week

Time for Another Chinese Tea

Since it is the Chinese New Year, we have a good excuse to do another Chinese-themed tea.  As with the previous Chinese tea we had during the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节), our Chinese New Year tea was filled with traditional Chinese snacks:

1. Peanut butter mochi (花生米糬)
2. Sesame mochi (芝麻米糬)
3. Peanut dainties (花生酥)
4. Mung bean patties (绿豆酥)
5. Fuzhou cyrstal puffs (福洲水晶饼)
6. Pandan rice cake (香兰叶糕)

Alongside enjoying the snacks and drinking rose tea, Tiger learned a new poem -- <<春晓>> (Spring Dawn) by another Tang dynasty poet, Meng Haoran (孟浩然).

This poem depicts the poet's contemplation upon a dawn in springtime.  Given that the Chinese New Year is also called the Spring Festival (春节) as it marks the beginning of spring in the Chinese calendar,  learning this particular poem seems very appropriate.

Besides memorising and reciting the poem, Tiger also learnt how the poem can be depicted as a painting and a song,

as well as a piece of music that is popular during the Chinese New Year.

This post is linked up to:

1. Creaive Kids Cultural Blog Hop #24 
2. Hip Homeschool Hop - 3/3/15
3. Finishing Strong #45 
4. History & Geography Meme #156
5. My Week in Review #27
6. Collage Friday: Refresh and Have Faith
7. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with winter and spring in the same week