Learning to write Chinese

Peyton has been on a kick to learn about China.  So instead of learning about the planned Egypt...we are learning about China.  He is getting a kick out of trying to write Chinese.  I don't understand Chinese much, so it's as foreign to me as it is to him, and it's hard to teach something that is foreign to you, but I try.  We read a story from Story of the World about Ancient Egypt.  It was about a boy and his father who lived on a farm and worked in rice fields.  It was a nice little story.  He colored a picture relating to it and then found a website that showed you how to draw some Chinese characters and he tried to draw them.

The computer screen is showing how to draw the character (it shows it in motion)

Peyton copies the character and writes it on the white board.  The only character I know on the board is the one on the very top...that is the character for person. :)

We have been reading some stories from this book to learn about Ancient China.  The first story was about how silk was 'invented'.  The Chinese kept it a secret for a very long time.  They get silk from silkworms who like to eat the leaves of mulberry trees.  They have to feed the worms every 30 minutes to fatten them up.  Oh what a fun job that would be. :)