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Friday, September 30, 2011

China reflections

I'd been looking forward to our China month because I knew it would get us out into our local community in Singapore, which is heavily dominated by Chinese culture.  We were active participants in the Mid-Autumn celebrations around Singapore.  We learned more about the foods that we've been eating since we moved here.  And we learned a couple new Mandarin words along the way. 

Did you find any resources in your local community?  A Chinese restaurant selling mooncakes?  Or a community center with festival celebrations?  A neighbor with a lantern in their window?

Just as The Whirl Girl and I have been discovering parts of our local community, Whirls and Twirls has been connecting with members of its global community.  In addition to all of our crafty-cooking-musical goodness, I've been working on trying to spread the wings of Whirls and Twirls to reach a bigger audience.

I get an almost daily reminder from The Whirl Girl about how Whirls and Twirls is changing her perspective.  When she's not asking to do another project - which she frequently is - she is remembering something that she's learned in our "travels."  It is inspiring to me as a parent, and as a global educator, to see how her worldview is expanding through our adventures.  And when you feel inspired, you want to share it!

This month, we made two steps in that direction.  We were featured on Modern Parents Messy Kids, one of my favorite crafty parenting blogs, in a thoughtful 9/11 post on raising kids with empathy and global perspective.  And I wrote a guest post on the Barefoot Books Living Barefoot blog about how we bring life to their fantastic books with crafts and cooking projects. 

These collaborations reminded me of one of the best parts about writing Whirls and Twirls - the discovery of new communities of people that share my passions for travel, creativity, and global education.

I've been sharing some of these amazing resources here and there in posts and by adding links that I find useful down the right sidebar.  From here on out, I'm going to try to be a bit more systematic about it.  Each Monday will feature a resource that I've found that relates to our efforts here.

If you are a like-minded soul out there, let us know what you're working on.  Or if you've found a website or organization that you think we should know about, please share it with us.  Likewise, please share our website with those who think might be interested in joining us for the ride.

But what you really want to know is where are we going next month?!  Without further ado, for October, Whirls and Twirls will be traveling to....

INDIA!

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