For September, Whirls and Twirls will be traveling to C H I N A !
flag from The World Flag Database
map from National Geographic
It's time for the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, which is my favorite new festival discovery since we moved to Singapore. I love autumn. How life starts to slow down as the days get shorter. The crisp feeling in the air. Biting into a hand-picked apple. Since we don't exactly experience that change of seasons here in equatorial Singapore, I am happy to at least to celebrate autumn itself and what it reminds me of. Plus it's a festival of lanterns lighting up the night and mooncakes filling up the stomach.
There are lots of kid-friendly activities going on around Singapore in tandem with the festival. So China was an easy choice. This month the challenge will be selecting from the abundance of resources and outing possibilities so we don't exhaust The Whirl Girl or her mama. We are talking about the biggest country in the world afterall, and one of the oldest civilizations. Plus about 75% of Singaporeans are of Chinese origin so we are surrounded by Chinese culture.
If you're not living in a place that's as quite as Chinese as Singapore, check out your local Chinese community centers or restaurants. I bet you'll at least be able to find some lanterns in the windows and/or mooncakes for sale. And they may know about other activities happening nearby. Or check and see if there's a local Chinese temple.
Here's our tentative plan for this month's trip. The reading will be ongoing and the other activities we will do throughout the month, posting about and updating them as we go.
Reading: Five (+) children's books and one grown-up book
Field Tripping: Kids' lantern walk, Chinatown, and Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations around town
Cooking: Mooncakes
Making music: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in Mandarin
Crafting: Rainbow rice collage, lanterns, a popup city, panda toy, dragon craft, Chinese calligraphy, mooncatcher, fan
Conversing: 月(moon)
Giving Back: donation to The Library Project
We're packed and ready to go. Here's some photos of China to get us excited for the trip:
flag from The World Flag Database
map from National Geographic
It's time for the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, which is my favorite new festival discovery since we moved to Singapore. I love autumn. How life starts to slow down as the days get shorter. The crisp feeling in the air. Biting into a hand-picked apple. Since we don't exactly experience that change of seasons here in equatorial Singapore, I am happy to at least to celebrate autumn itself and what it reminds me of. Plus it's a festival of lanterns lighting up the night and mooncakes filling up the stomach.
If you're not living in a place that's as quite as Chinese as Singapore, check out your local Chinese community centers or restaurants. I bet you'll at least be able to find some lanterns in the windows and/or mooncakes for sale. And they may know about other activities happening nearby. Or check and see if there's a local Chinese temple.
Here's our tentative plan for this month's trip. The reading will be ongoing and the other activities we will do throughout the month, posting about and updating them as we go.
Reading: Five (+) children's books and one grown-up book
Field Tripping: Kids' lantern walk, Chinatown, and Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations around town
Cooking: Mooncakes
Making music: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in Mandarin
Crafting: Rainbow rice collage, lanterns, a popup city, panda toy, dragon craft, Chinese calligraphy, mooncatcher, fan
Conversing: 月(moon)
Giving Back: donation to The Library Project
We're packed and ready to go. Here's some photos of China to get us excited for the trip:
(all photos from National Geographic)
Let's go!
An idea for giving back this month. Love this portion of your blog.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chinacare.org/