Getting ready for China

We have been busy shopping, cleaning and getting ready for our China trip.

Today, we watched "Kai-Lan's great trip to China" where she visits "gu nai-nai"(great aunt) and a baby panda in China. I know it's for little kids but it was good to give my kids few more vocabulary words like, "kai-xin = happy", "gen wo lai= follow me","hu tou xie= tiger shoe", etc. The show also emphasized "trying some new, because you might like it" which I know will be important for the kids when going to any new places, esp. a new country. So it was worth watching it for us.


We have also been looking at the tours we'll be taking for our China trip and learning the Chinese names as well as the English names and learning a little history about the various places we'll be visiting provided in the travel guide.

The children also love to play "shopping" in which they buy/sell stuff using "yuan" (Chinese currency) and practices bargaining in Chinese. A favorite phrase, "tai gui le!" (too expensive) :)

icon of China: Chairman Mao

I also did a key word "China" search in our library system for children's books (that's also how I found Kai-Lan) a while ago so they have been reading and listening to a lot of books to learn more about China culturally.

A few of the books we like that come to mind include,

1. The Long-haired girl by Doreen Rappaport
2. Liu and the Bird (A journey in Chinese calligraphy) by Catherine Louis
3. The Travel game by John Grandits (this is a book about a boy who plays imaginary "travel game" with his aunt and in the book, they travel to HongKong) W really wants to play the travel game; think that will have wait until we come back from China.