Making Kites

We were studying Ancient China this week, which lends itself to a tremendous array of hands-on activities!  I studied Chinese in college for two years and lived in Western China for about 6 weeks in 1996.  I also visited in 1992.  DS really got into looking at my photo album from 1996, especially since I had lived along the banks of the Huang He River, which is where China's Ancient civilization began.  I told them about how when we saw it we noted that it wasn't Huang He, it was Hong He- the River appears more red than yellow.  It's something that stuck in my memory.

My older girls took a summer language class last summer (not this most recent one) and did an on-line course afterward, but we decided not to keep up with it.  We are after all focused on moving to a very different country, and it was a little confusing to be learning bits of both. But it was nice to go back to China for a visit this week.

Among the projects we didn't get to were brush painting/calligraphy, and making jiao-zi, or dumplings.  I have a vegetarian dumpling recipe made with tofu that their teacher gave me last year, and I have most of the ingredients, but we just didn't get to it.  Next week we are going to have some catch-up time as well as some work-ahead time, so I know what I need to do!

But we did do kite-making.  I combined two sets of instructions found on the Tapestry website, but basically ended up doing our own thing.  I bought 2 tiny 48" dowels at the hardware store and had a man there cut them in half for me.  At another hardware store, I was given a bunch of teeny tin(ier) dowels.  They had all broken and the person helping me said I could have them since they weren't salable, and escorted me out the door.  Score!  I was able to trim these down to 20" each, and these formed the crossbar.

The roll of white paper I got from my mother.  I don't know where we would be without Nana's never-ending storehouse of craft supplies, but it certainly has made our homeschool cheaper!  This week she even delivered!

The next step was to tie the two dowels together with string, in the shape of a 't.'  We laid them on a square of paper (about 26" square) and marked the endpoints.  They drew the diamond shape with a sharpie.  Then, I sent 'em off to draw their design.  Some chose markers, some chose paints, some were given fingerpaints. 

DD12 helped the Little Princess draw a princess, of course, but a Chinese-looking one based on the illustrations in our Upper Grammar Dialectic literature selection, Fa Mulan.   I think it's important to point out that we did the drawing and painting before we cut them out.  Allowed for...overflow.

The next step was to cut out around the rectangle but wider- about the width of a ruler.  Then we folded that in on the line and glued it down, with the sticks inside. 

Attaching the strings (also provided by Nana), we had a little trial and error.  I punched two holes on each corner with my scissors, and threaded the string through, tying it on the back.  But I ended up doing four strings, tied together in the middle loosely.  DD10 did two strings tied on two ends which was neater.  Then she tied them together with the roll of string that she would use to fly the kite.  I tried to get a picture of the strings pulled away from the back so you could see it, but I had an interloper!

There it is!  Sadly, I didn't get a good shot of his dragon design.  I assure you it was quality work and very original. 

This Girl Loves to be Blogged, can you tell?  Her dragon design came off a website, but she did a good job of coloring around it so that it blended in, and then designed round it.  She was the first one outside to fly it this morning, and her assessment when she came inside was, "That worked better than I thought it was going to."
I hope that some day the weather will cooperate and we will get outside somewhere more spacious to really give them a try, but then I would risk breaking them...that's a tough call!  They will make such nice decorations for our Unit Celebration.

One more design for you, from the Girl who Hates to be Blogged.  This came out of her dialectic History Resource, which she really likes, The Usborne Encyclopedia of World Religions (Internet-Linked). 
At times like this I am glad that Tapestry forces me to emphasizes arts and crafts like this.  For one thing, these crafts become so much more meaningful because they relate to the time period we are experiencing. 

But additionally, I would've skipped them.  I also would've told you that I had only one 'artsy' daughter.  But this year I have seen DD12 get totally absorbed in these artistic expressions.  I have watched DS sit carefully focused with the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth while he works those scissors.  And all of them have produced items they feel genuinely proud of, and which carry a story as well.

I never really set out to enjoy homeschooling- it was just something we had to do.  Someday I could write about that.  But this year I do love it.  I feel like we've grown into it bit by bit.  I probably couldn't have done Tapestry in our first year, but I am so glad I found it now.

I'll be back next week to let you know how the jiao-zi turned out.  I might have to hunt down some gluten-free wrappers.