Chinese New Year Books

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In the past, the kids and I have marked the Chinese New Year with a paper craft. This year, I came across a series of books about Chinese history and thought we might just change the pace a bit. One in particular interested me because it talked about how the Great Wall of China came to be. “The Emperor Who Built The Great Wall” tells the story of the first emperor of China, who not only built the Great Wall, but is also famous for the terracotta warriors in his tomb, and for unifying China when it previously consisted of seven states.

To celebrate Chinese New Year, the author, Jillian Lin, has made this book available for free on Amazon, on February 19-20, 2015. Here’s the link. I hope you use it and download it, especially if you are studying ancient history this year. We found the book informative and easy to read and understand. The illustrations are Chinese-style, so it will be a total immersion in all things China.

The Emperor Who Built The Great Wall

For Chinese New Year, we read some books on ancient Chinese history

The kids actually asked me to read it again. At the end of the story, there is a very informative section called “Did You Know?” which contains even more historical facts presented in a short and sweet way. Then, you get to test their knowledge with a series of multiple-choice questions based on the book. You only have three choices: a, b, and c, which I think is better for younger children.  Continue reading »


Story of the World, Vol. 1, Chapter 8

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Chapter 8 deals with the Assyrians: Shamshi-Adad and the Story of Gilgamesh. If you don’t mind the subject of cruelty and dictators, then you should be OK with this chapter.

Other than that, this was a fairly easy chapter to go through because I decided to read to them only Gilgamesh the King (Ludmila Zeman) and not the next two books. I am not trying to be mysterious here. It’s just that Susan Wise Bauer has specifically asked us not to publish her reading lists, so I will not go into details about all the other titles.

Gilgamesh the King Book Cover

Suffice it to say that I learned the hard way to preview these titles and, as I looked at them, they just seemed so pagan and raw for my young kids, I decided they should be in middle school before reading such matter.   Continue reading »