We've been talking throughout the Olympic Games about China, learning quite a bit from the opening ceremonies and various "highlight" videos that air during the games. Today I designated as China day as I have a scrapbooking night tonight and will not be home for dinner. Since we eat Chinese food about twice a month, it seemed as if this was the day to not have the meal fit with the country.

Our craft today was to make handprint Chinese dragons. We read the Legend of the Chinese Dragon by Marie Sellier, Wang Fei, and Catherine Louis. It is a great story written in English and Chinese that outlines the legend of the creation of the dragon by children to unite their warring clans. The Chinese dragon simply stands for unity & peace. We decided to create a dragon using our handprints. We followed (well, mostly) the directions from the Activity Village website.

• Created a memory/matching game using the Olympic pictograms
• An Olympic coloring book for Bug
• A 22 page unit about the Beijing and the games from the Australian Georgraphy Teachers' Assoc.
• Chinese Words and Phrases Handout
• A worksheet to review the symbolism and colors of the Olympic rings
• An exercise in alphabetizing the events of the 2008 Olympic Games
• A wordsearch about the Olympics
• The Fuwa (mascots of the Beijing Olympics) and what they stand for