Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Enchanted Learning
Recently, after the christmas holidays, we have started doing the worksheets from enchanted learning again. We really love those. They have a nice calendar on there, which gives 1 sheet a day to work with, but there is a lot more on there. Lots and lots of information for virtually all ages. The kids really love working with those. The worksheets tend to make them ask lots and lots of questions afterwards, which is really good, as this way they get a lot of information to think about. Home Educating really rocks!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
First Emperor Exhibition
On 7 January 2008 we went to the First Emperor Exhibition in the British Museum. This was very very interesting. This whole terra cotta army, the governmental people, the artists etc. It was very impressive, especially when we learned that this emperor was only 13 when he became king of Qin. He came from a horse breeders family, but was very ambitions, within a few years he started conquering the surrounding states and made China as it is today, and this was before our counting of time started.
He standardized the written language to the Qin written language, therefore the Chinese today can still all read what others write, their spoken language can be quite different though. Of course it was necessary for all governmental offices to have the same written language to make sure all would understand each other. He standardized the weapons of the army, he made a sewage system and roads through the country happen. He also standardized the width of the base of charriots to make sure they would fit on the roads, which was important for quick transport of food, weapons or armies.
He died at age 49. He was quite afraid of dying and therefore made this huge army etc. to have that in the afterlife to still be ruling, obviously the feeling the need to keep doing what he did before death, after death.
We all enjoyed the exhibition very much, even our 4yo.
The exhibitions made me think about him being brilliant, but also that he was mad for all he did, its unbelievable what he all did.
That thought made a quote from Pirates of the Carribbean pop up in my mind: Will: "This is either madness or brilliance." Jack: "Its remarkable how often those two traits coincide."
He standardized the written language to the Qin written language, therefore the Chinese today can still all read what others write, their spoken language can be quite different though. Of course it was necessary for all governmental offices to have the same written language to make sure all would understand each other. He standardized the weapons of the army, he made a sewage system and roads through the country happen. He also standardized the width of the base of charriots to make sure they would fit on the roads, which was important for quick transport of food, weapons or armies.
He died at age 49. He was quite afraid of dying and therefore made this huge army etc. to have that in the afterlife to still be ruling, obviously the feeling the need to keep doing what he did before death, after death.
We all enjoyed the exhibition very much, even our 4yo.
The exhibitions made me think about him being brilliant, but also that he was mad for all he did, its unbelievable what he all did.
That thought made a quote from Pirates of the Carribbean pop up in my mind: Will: "This is either madness or brilliance." Jack: "Its remarkable how often those two traits coincide."
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