Asia the bright pearl, a marvelous, proud ancient and modern legend. In 2019, the first Intercontinental Carnival of SUIS Qingpu Campus began in Asia, a magical place full of natural wonders, ancient history and rich cultural traditions.
While the wonderful scenes of the opening ceremony are still vivid in our memories, and though our students are still immersed in inquiry learning, our Asia Carnival will finally come to a close on Friday 6th December. Please join us in an experience of exploring Asia.
Welcome to the first station of the Asian carnival, that is exploring legendary China where you can see the children, parents and teachers’ brilliant ideas, such as Peking Opera, Hua Mulan, Chinese food, capital culture, Xi’An history, Shanghai grand stage and the culture of 56 ethnic groups! With all those traditional decorations and pictures, it seems like you are having a surreal journey to China. In addition, the small craftsmade by the students themselves in the process of exploration also dazzled everyone. Creative tie-dye crafts, colorful mud food, Peking Opera masks, colorful Jiangnan oil-paper umbrella and so on.
Grade Two studied ‘Famous Dynasty of China’, involving ‘Beauty Song’, ‘Ming Qing – The Past and Present lives of the Palace Museum’ , ‘The Great Tang Dynasty’and ‘Qin Han Style’. We decorated our classrooms after learning the history. We learnt the Song Poems. Look, students copied their favorite Song Poems on the lanterns. By watching documentary videos, students have known about the construction of the Palace Museum and the histories of Ming and Qing dynasties. Students were encouraged to explore and know about the Palace Museum from different perspectives they were interested in, such as number, color, architecture and holy animals. Students explored the culture, costumes, and food of the entire Tang Dynasty with interest, and made the woman’s head ornament on the head, which deeply imprinted the culture and style of the Tang Dynasty in the hearts of each student. Students inquired the history of Qin and Han Dynasties with great interest, and realized that the whole history of Qin and Han Dynasties is the process of China’s gradual reunification through war and continuous expansion of territory. The little scientists in Class 2D brought the model of the seismograph, explained in details to the class, and raised their own doubts, which triggered the whole class discussion about the doubts. The Chinese classical architectural models accompanied students walking through the human architectural history.
Grade Three and Grade Four students are flying to the destination of Carnival , getting to explore foreign culture. 3A takes Fall in love with Kyotoas theme. While exploring the food, cloth, building and transportation in Kyoto, it also makes a comparative study between Japanese and Chinese traditional culture. Students can see the differences between China and Japan, and also establish a better connection between them through the study of their favorite comic characters and they also tried to explore the stories behind the comic writers, which led them to the think of Japanese comic history. The Thai feast of Class 4A and the dynamic Thailand of Class 4B are also different. In the inquiry class, with the help of “clues” prepared by the teacher, students research and record the recipe of mango glutinous rice; during the class meeting time, students tried the unique sport of Thailand, fujiqiu, wrote down good wishes for Thailand.
During the Carnival, the music classrooms were transformed into vehicles that allowed us to travel to different places and eras! Grade One and Two students took an in depth look at China’s rich artistic history and musical culture, by studying Beijing Opera as well as learning how to do a traditional Dragon Dance. Grade Three students studied the Japanese Bon Dance. Grade Four delved into the traditional music of Thailand.
We also invited teachers of Kendo to make students experience the spirit of Kendo. They incarnate themselves as gourmets, bring all kinds of food materials and take children to make Sushi.
Wushu is the soul of China. In PE class, teachers taught students the basic skills of traditional martial arts. We are looking forward students’ 10-step boxing show at the closing ceremony!
In the Art Class, our kids created so many beautiful pieces of art, such as designing the cutest panda, creating the shape of blue and white porcelain. Our higher grade students got some knowledge about Terracotta Warriors and Dunhuang Frescoes. They interpretated this great legacy though their own eyes with a totally different vision. Additionally, our students created the poster and designed some clothes inspired by the culture of Asia.
The theme countries of this exploration in Grade Six are Singapore, Laos, Nepal and Bhutan. The four classes made an in-depth study of these countries from the aspects of food, sports activities, customs, traditional festivals, traditional clothing, geographical overview, tourism, music and dance.
In our closing ceremony you will see more works students have done during this month, such as the Lion Dance and Dao Ma Dan (characters from Peking Opera). You may also see students’ cross-subject works.
We look forward to seeing all of you on December 6th. We’ve prepared so many different activities for you! Let’s take our passports and enjoy our time!