This is probably the most ambitious lapbook that we’ve completed thus far. We haven’t completed many as I’ve never been a fan of doing them, but they seem to get easier as the children get older and can make choices about the layout and pictures.
We read from Stories of the World:Book 2 by Safia Iqbal and Islamic Village Stories: My Chinese Village from Goodword Kidz.
For the lapbook, there were lots of pieces taken from our Ancient Civilizations eBook, dynamic2moms (scroll down for China), History for Kids and some from a lens on Squidoo. We omitted anything having to do with the Chinese zodiac and other shirky junk.
The lapbook contains several elements. First, we learned what the people of ancient China ate:
Then, we read about the difficult task of building the Great Wall of China.
After that, we learned to count (I don’t think it specified Cantonese or Mandarin?) and we completed an accordion-style timeline.
The costumes of ancient China are vast and for this we used a paper doll to display some samples from different dynasties.
We learned more about the Uighurs of China so that we may mentally connect with the Ulama and can visualize the reality of Islam being a global deen. We read about the nomads who come from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan to spend a few months in the hills surrounding the villages of Uyghuristan,all the while living in yurts. You can see a slideshow of the Uighurs here.
Next up, we learned about the discovery of silk and the silk road.
On the back, we added definitions
And finally, we did a bit of dictation on the architecture of ancient China so that my daughter can sharpen her listening skills.
*The blank country page is from Geography Scribe* I search for maps and my daughter traces them in the empty space. We then use an atlas so that she can draw the flag.
