Moving and Adjusting

 It's been a little over a week now since we moved half way around the world. It's been a busy week, but good. We also had my daughter's birthday party and celebrated Christmas this week. We are over jet lag (or just about over it!) and have spent lots and lots of time outside (I thought we would). We started a routine of going for a walk/run in the morning, working in the yard for an hour or two, and then going somewhere (the park, the beach, running errands, etc...) in the afternoon. Of course when we start homeschooling our schedule will change a little bit. There's lots of gardening to do and a big greenhouse to fix. I've LOVED being able to garden so much (Charlie and the kids too!). Some things we have been amazed at and have had a bit of culture shock so far is:

-How much sky we see every day. Without having any big buildings around us, it's bene great to see so much sky.

-How beautiful this part of the world is. We regularly see the ocean, the mountains, fields of green grass (with sheep and cows), and beautiful clouds and sunsets. 

-Getting outside so much and not having to worry about the smog.

-How much sugary foods and packaged foods there are here. The other day I went to the grocery store and was surprised to see "vegetables" on the top of the aisle in the middle of the store. Normally vegetables are in the produce section on the side of the store. Then I realized: it's canned vegetables! For the sweets, part of it is because it's Christmas. We've had to limit how much our kids have so we don't go crazy on sugar. We want to keep our healthy eating habits as much as we can. 

-One of the biggest things we miss is our own kitchen and cooking so much from scratch. I miss my rolling pin, my wish, my bowls, my bread pan, my oven, my kitchen knife (we ended up buying a new one here...it seems that many people who move here from China also buy a Chinese kitchen knife because they are so used to working with it), porridge (we had porridge in the morning almost every day in China).

-Having to drive almost everywhere- not much is in walking distance. 

Our room is more organized. We finally have a bookshelf, which is huge! We are hoping to convert half of a shed into a homeschool/ office/ music room (we bought a saxophone for my oldest son to learn to play, a guitar for Charlie, and a drum pad for Charlie to practice drumming on) but have to wait until all the boxes and stuff that are inside it can be sorted and moved out. 

I hope you have a great Christmas. The pictures below are from a beach that's about a 15 minute drive away. It's beautiful!

To the beach

 We moved across the world yesterday- from China to the states. It was a long flight, waiting, and a few small flights but we are here. Now we have jet lag and getting settled in. Today was the beach- it was really windy and cold but nice. The waves this week are supposed to be big.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 Happy Thanksgiving! We had a small Thanksgiving meal at our home for Thanksgiving and our church is having a potluck Thanksgiving on Saturday (which I'm looking forward to!). 

The INK Newspaper (my other website and company) is having a sale for Thanksgiving. From November 24 to the 28, enjoy 20% off your order by using the code: THANKS20 

Why Study Geography?

 I just wrote an article called "Why Study Geography?" It's on my blog on the pages. It's a short article. If you have time, take a look at it.

Australia Books

 I just finished 2 books, which are both on the ink website (www.inknewspaper.net) and will soon be available on the Living Book Press (www.livingbookpress.com). Here are the descriptions:

The Story of Our Continent: Australia

This book goes through Australia’s history, from the Aboriginals who first lived there, to Captain Cook, the different explorers and expeditions, through World War I and II, up until today (2023). It tells the history of Australia through stories with photographs and some famous paintings to help illustrate them. 

The Geography of Australia and New Zealand for Kids

Explore the places, deserts, mountains, sea, animals, and people of Australia and New Zealand through this book. This book goes through each state of Australia (including Tasmania Island) and then New Zealand. Included are map questions, review questions, famous artists of Australia (whose drawings and paintings help Australia come to life), and interviews with people who live in some of Australia’s cities and have some unique jobs. You’ll need a good atlas or map as you go through this book to answer the map questions. 

Countryside

 We went to the countryside for the day over the weekend and went hiking a little. It's hard to find places to go hiking; we were just going in between fields. It was a beautiful day.

Milo Winter

 I've been going through an old book from the 1930s. I "rescued" it because it was going to be trashed a few years ago. I'm just now getting to look at it; it's a collection of English literature. There are some really great illustrations, signed "MW." I kept trying to figure out who "MW" was and so I finally looked t up: Milo Winter, the famous illustrator! He illustrated a copy of Aesop's Fables. Later on he signed the pictures with his full name. Here are some samples (some are compared with the literature book and Aesop's Fables:

Early Snow

 The kids were super happy to wake up this morning to snow. They had lots of fun in the snow and I got some great pictures. 

Rose Seeds

 Every year for the last 7 or more years I've gone around our apartment complex, cutting the rose hips this time of year. They don't regularly cut the roses during the year so this time of year the roses are all gone and the rose hips have turned orange. That means that they are full of seeds. I wasn't going to collect them this year because we are moving soon, but I thought the seeds might make great going away gifts for a few close friends who like to garden. 

These are some of the rose hips cut and some of the seeds I collected. It's a bit of work getting the seeds out. They need to "sleep" for the winter before they can sprout so I normally put them in a ziplock bag with a little wet dirt and put them in the fridge. Around January they start sprouting in the bag and then February or so I can transplant the seedlings to pots to grow. I love watching the seeds sprout. It's like magic! 

Something else we noticed in the wall in our backyard are some little cocoons from an unknown insect. One of them was covered over with more dirt and the other wasn't. You can see the spots where they came out of the cocoons. 

Nature Study in the Fall

 A few days ago we spent some time in the backyard drawing leaves and walnuts (some of which had fallen and started to sprout!). It was so nice! We haven't been able to be out in the yard like this for a while because it was hot (with lots of mosquitos) in the summer, and then we had about 3 weeks of off and on rain. It was really great to be drawing outside with the kids- one of my favorite things! 

Last week we also saw some corn that someone had hung out in their yard to dry. However, with all the rain, the kernels on the corn started to sprout!

Updated list of Chinese Books

 I just updated the page on this blog about books in Chinese about Chinese history. These are books that we have and we wanted to share the titles with you. Sometimes it's hard to find great books in Chinese about Chinese history and I hope this is a great way to help you get started on finding some great books in Chinese. 

Ideas for Learning about Current Events

 I recently wrote an article for the INK Newspaper website (INK- the Illustrated Newspaper for Kids). I thought it might be good to re-post it here: 

Ideas for Learning About Current Events

Before we get started, I want to quote from an article called “The Teaching of Contemporary History” by R. A. Pennethorne, published in the Parent’s Review, Volume 12, 1902, pages 272-277

• Now every argument for the teaching of history as a whole applies doubly to the history of our own times. We who are taking our part, however humbly or obscurely, in the ‘edifying’ or building up of this world in any direction, cannot do so except on those foundations and beginnings made before us.
• No great movement, no convulsion of nations or of society is sudden; the causes of today’s events must be sought, not only in last year’s, but in yesterday’s, and today’s doings are profoundly affecting tomorrow.
• How much better too can we understand the full meaning of past events when we study present results.
• No deed or event is an end in itself, no settlement is final; all are progressing towards some end and are means by which it may be attained, but "the end is not yet.”
• It must, however, be acknowledge that there are difficulties to be taken into serious consideration if we decide upon giving definite instruction on the course of current events. To go no further than the effect upon the child’s nervous system; everyone knows that the remote horror which happens “hundreds of years ago” is much less alarming to children than something which happened “only yesterday,” for their ideas of time and space are vague and if tragedies befell somewhere yesterday, why not here “today?” argues the child. 
• What we have to do, however, is to give our children what is generally believed to be true, but at the same time never let them think that the judgment of the moment is necessarily final or infallible. We must refrain from the tempting wiles of gossip, especially about living persons who occupy great positions, either from worth, genius, or inherited power.
• Much may be done by rational conversation and by letting the children listen to their elders when they are talking of affairs of the moment. Much, too, might be done by even one lesson a week in school or at home, if time could not be spared for more. 

Here are some ideas to help you dig deeper into the news and current events. 

1. Anytime a country is mentioned and you can’t think of where it is, you should look it up on the world map. Think through what you know about that country already.
2. If a country is often in the news, then you can take a closer look at that country. For example, sometimes things in the news have to do with something that happened before. What happened before? You might have to learn a bit of history to understand current events. 
3. You can write an article as if you were a news reporter. 
4. “Eyewitness Account.” Put yourself somewhere in a news’ story. Let’s say there was a big earthquake. What would it have been like to have been there when the earthquake happened? Do you think your house would still be standing? Where would you go if an earthquake happens?
5. Draw a picture of one of the stories in the news.
6. Pretend that you are old and you’re telling your grandkids about something you heard in the news growing up. One example of this was living through the COVID 19 pandemic. What would you tell your grandkids about it?
7. Choose something that’s going on in the news and look at it from both sides. For example, if two countries are arguing over who gets to use the water in a certain lake, then think through what arguments both countries might have for using the water. 
8. Pretend that you are a news reporter and have to interview someone that was there when something happened. Choose an article in the paper or a story in the news and put together a list of questions that you might ask someone (who would you interview?) if you were a journalist. 

Tea and Coffee Around The World

I just finished another book. It's available on the INK Website here (look under "resources") and will soon be available on the Living Book Press website. I love tea and coffee and it's fun to hear about how tea and coffee are enjoyed around the world. It was a fun book to do the research for and to write. Here's the description for the book: 

This book explores tea and coffee cultures around the world as well as the history of tea and coffee and how they are made. This book is a fun way to learn geography and read about some of the people (and drinks people enjoy) around the world. 

Shanghai

 We went to Shanghai for a few days to renew the kids' passports and had a few other things to do. We did some sightseeing though: Saturday we went to Ignatius Catholic Church which was built in the early 1900s. They had some gorgeous stained glass windows! Today we went to a water village, but it was really hot and humid. We didn't think Shanghai would be so hot this time of year and can imagine how hot and humid it gets in the summer.

The Park

 We went to the park yesterday. This used to be the zoo here and they turned it into a park. In many cities in China they've moved the zoos from small places (and made those small places parks) to huge areas outside of the cities.  Most of the zoos were moved years ago (15-20 years ago or so).