Field Trip Friday: China

Obviously, the best field trip for this unit would have been to attend the Olympics in Beijing, or even just an ordinary trip to China. However, since most of us are not afforded the luxury of taking field trips across the globe whenever we like, I have put together a few ideas.


Check your local art museum and see if they have a collection of Chinese art and/or artifacts. When I checked our local art museum (in Rochester, NY), I did not find any Chinese art, but did learn of several upcoming programs including a performance by the National Acrobats of China and Asian Pacific American Heritage Family Day. I did find 2 US museums that do have exhibits of Chinese art, but I am sure there are more.

Seattle Art Museum-Chinese Art: A Seattle Perspective
US Chinese Art Museum- Oakland, CA

Another option is to visit any of the Olympic venues that are open to the public.

If none of these options are possible, and I admit most of them are not doable for the majority of us, invite friends over and hold your own Olympics. You can have Olympic-style events like swim races, foot races, long jump, etc or you can hold your own contests such as sack races, three-legged race, etc. Be sure to start with an opening ceremony and don’t forget medal ceremonies. Another option is to hold a Chinese dinner night. You could order out, but it would be more realistic to make it yourselves and dine in. Don’t forget the chopsticks!

Math Monday: China and the 2008 Olympics

So this week's unit is in honor of the Olympics and will be focused on China, specifically Beijing and the 2008 Olympic games. For math this week, we will be doing the following:

Basic arithmetic, Counting, and Graphing
Olympic medal tracking: Click here for events and results
Choose an event and then click on the results
-how many medals did each country earn? (the younger ones can practice counting and those who are adding can add up the total number of gold, silver, and bronze medals a certain country has won)
-Make a bar graph of medals won

Distance Measuring, Timing, Number Places, Ordinal Numbers
Hold your own Olympics
Long jump = measuring
100 yard dash = timing and measuring
Use a stopwatch for the race and/or measure the distance jumped and then take their time/distance and use it to show number places.
Can also teach younger ones about ordinal numbers

Measuring, Fractions
Cook a traditional Chinese dish (this also ties in with social studies). Here are some recipes I have found:
Chinese Sponge Cake
Won Ton Soup
Fried Rice

Math tools
Abacuses are still used today for arithmetic in China. Practice using an abacus for adding and subtracting, but also for teaching number places.

Money
Chinese currency is called Renminbi and is made up of dollars called yuan or kuai. Pronunciations can be heard and pictures of the currency can be seen here

Time
-Print out clock template here
Attach hands with a paper fastener
-Have the children move the hands to set the time of various Olympic events. You can search the Olympic schedule here
Click the event(s) of your choice and then you will see the times of the matches.

Word problems
(with the exception of the first word problem, the others contain actual trivia/facts about China and Chinese culture):

Sun Li loves egg rolls. Her grandmother made one dozen egg rolls for lunch. Sun Li ate 3 by herself. How many egg rolls are left?

Chinese New Year is celebrated for 2 weeks plus 1 day. How many days are spent celebrating Chinese New Year, each year?

The Beijing Subway has 4 lines above ground and 5 lines underground. How many lines are there in all?

It costs 1000 yuan for the best tickets to the final Men’s basketball game and medal ceremony. The best tickets to the final Men’s volleyball game and medal ceremony cost 600 yuan. How many more yuan does it cost to see the basketball game?

One American dollar is equal to about 7 yuan. If I have 10 American dollars, about how many yuan would that be?

Can you think of any other ways to incorporate China and/or the Olympics into elementary math?