“Stories are not a waste of time”
― Grace Lin, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
Loaded with legends from Chinese culture, Where the Mountain meets the Moon was an adventure, we won’t forget. Our spine for last month’s book adventure, this literary journey provided us with the perfect opportunity to dive into culture study.
If you were to ask me what my favorite part of homeschooling is, my answer would be how our family finds ourselves immersed in the study of different cultures all the time. I love that it offers my children a basis to build their worldviews from, and it’s important to me as a parent to raise children who are aware of the beautiful diversity of the world; from food, to stories, to music, and so much more, I hold value in gaining understanding of humanity worldwide in the most accurate and respectful ways possible.
As a disclaimer: I have no cultural ties to China, and can only provide information that is of my understanding and welcome anyone who has more expertise on this subject to critique our learning pathway to help ensure accuracy where accuracy lacks.
The Curriculum:
Our book list for this year is heavily influenced by Blossom and Root’s Second Grade Language Arts: Fantastic Journeys and Perilous Quests.
While our curriculum for Language Arts is Blossom and Root at it’s core, the crowning jewel of our literary journey is the Family Learning Guide from Hearth Magic which gave it more of the enchantment that is necessary with such a fantastic adventure.
Alongside the Where the Mountain Meets the Moon guide we paired it with the Lunar New Year/Nian Monster picture book guide from Hearth Magic as well.
My goal this month was to use Where the Mountain Meets the Moon as the spine, and guiding force behind our extended learning, and to end it with an honorary celebration of the Lunar New Year according to the Chinese calendar and celebrated by much of China as well as other Asian cultures.
THE FOOD
Every time I jump into a book adventure I try to find opportunities to help bring it to life with food. Which might be why I’m so in love with Hearth Magic’s guides because there’s almost always a good recipe theme within the chapters to explore.
When it comes to books that have cultural connections, however, I find it even more important to explore the culture itself through it’s food. I’m unsure of the authenticity of all of the recipes we’ve tried this past month, but a lot of them where major hits in our Nest!
We went through I think 15 lbs of rice in the month of January alone, and Devin and I both took note on having a revolving source of protein, a few Chinese staple condiments like rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, etc. and a lot of rice, we were able to create a plethora of Chinese dishes. Our favorite being Char Siu (bbq pork).
Mastering fried rice was our overall goal, and I think we did very well by the end of the month using the left over Char Siu to make pork fried rice!
Recipes not in the guides:
Honey Hoisin Pork Chops (Adapted)
Spicy Mongolian Beef (Adapted)
THE CRAFTS
I’ll admit right here, I kind of suck as a homeschool mom, and even everyday items like paper towels and paper plates aren’t things I normally have on hand not for intended purposes and not for crafts. Which actually may come as a shock to some people, as I do have a large craft supply stash, just not usually what I need for certain projects. I have yarn, but no roving wool. I have fabric, but not appropriate prints accepted by the homeschool community. I have paint, but not ones I want to share. I do share, but I don’t want to. And so on and so forth. So I grab what I can when I can, and usually from the Dollar Tree. This means that the Blue Willow plates in the guide were created by drawing a plate and then drawing the design. The abacus wasn’t as pretty as everyone else’s but tongue depressors and kabob skewers with a few beads work just as well.
Our favorite part was learning Hanzi and the specific techniques on how to write Chinese characters. Janus Academy- Learn Japanese/Chinese was a super helpful youtube channel for this exactly.
Speaking of youtube here are some other videos we turned to for extended learning. We’re all visual learners in the Nest, so we really enjoyed diving into some fun and educational videos.
YOUTUBE VIDEOS:
Lunar New Year:
How to Celebrate Chinese New Year
Homeschool Pop
Year of the Tiger
Fortune Tales | The Story of the Lunar New Year
Animal Videos:
Chinese Animals | Animals for Kids | Wild Animals
Inventions:
BOOKS:
Here is a list of books we read in addition to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon:
MUSIC:
I personally feel like music and food together are the cornerstones to exploring other cultures. When you can understand and appreciate these two components, appreciation soon follows. Here is a playlist we listened to during school. The soothing sounds helped maintain focus, as well and created a calm environment suited for reading together.
We hope you enjoyed reading about our literary adventure for January and hope it helped inspire your own study on this rich, and beautiful culture.
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