I am in the middle of planning a super fun unit on the olympics and China. There are so many great ideas out there! So, I thought I would start compiling them here on the blog for anyone interested.
First of all, there is a fabulous lapbook for the summer olympics 2008 found on homeschool share, where else?!?!
In addition to learning about the Olymipcs we are going to spend some time learning about China. Here are some ideas I will be using for this.
Missionary Studies
We will learn about 2 missionaries who went to China: Gladys Aylward and Hudson Taylor. Already on my shelves are the books Hero Tales and Missionary Stories with the Millers. If you have these books, there are short stories about both of these missionaries in them! Also, there is a video I have read about on another blog that is about Gladys Aylward called The Inn of Sixth Happiness. I found this when browsing the library and so we haven’t seen it yet, but it is pretty short so we will give it a try!
Movies
*Cool Runnings
*The Inn of Sixth Happiness
*Chariots of Fire
*Families of China (a 30 minute video on the people of China I found at our library)
Books
The First Olympic Games
Way to Go, Alex! (a story about the special olympics)
Hour of the Olympics
Beyond the Great Mountains: A Visual Poem about China
The Story of Chopsticks
The Yangtze
The Story About Ping (FIAR volume 1 title)
A Taste of China
Swifter, Higher, Stronger: A Photographic History of the Summer Olympics
Crafts
Paint Chinese flag
making a bamboo book out of popsicle sticks – check out this example on a blog I found
Create a tiny paper panda palace
Learning about China
*listen to traditional Chinese music on youtube
*learn about animals of China – specifically the panda – here is a lapbook on Giant Pandas
*learn to write our names in Chinese using this website
*learn to write the numbers in Chinese using this website or this one
*listen to the Chinese national anthem here
Other
*for geography, follow the torch as it travels, finding each country on the map
*make a cake at the end of your studies – decorate the cake with the olympic rings made out of colored M&M’s
*choose a famous olympian athlete to study
*have your own mini-olympics, family olympics or maybe a day of olympic games with friends!
*watch the olympics on tv – of course! 
*field trip – go to a Chinese restaurant for dinner!
*or maybe you’d like to try out a few Chinese recipes with your kids!
Hi! I love how informative and great your articles are. Can you recommend any other Food Blog Names or blogs that go over the same topics? Thanks a lot!