Asia Inspired Crafts {non-schooling projects inspired by Japan and China}

Lately, for non-schooling we've been doing units on continents, just sort of getting acquainted with maps and places and understanding that different people and cultures live in different places.  We've been doing short history lessons about those places and recently we looked at Asia.  We watched a documentary about weather in Asia from the history channel and we read about various traditions. And then we made some crafts.  First up were these Chinese Lanterns...

The girls had a great time coloring their dragons.

Sonja made a rainbow dragon! Rainbows are basically her new favorite color.

Vera showing off her beautiful artwork.

And then appreciating it all assembled!

Sonja is old enough she actually got to "make" hers, starting with her scissors and cutting the straight line. Hellllo, fine motor skills!

Then she wanted to add another rainbow to her outer lantern.

and more practicing cutting, before helping me glue everything into place.

She was so excited to see the lantern assembled {just a few drops of glue and it was instantly dry} and so proud of herself for cutting the strips herself!

For the other project we made paper Japanese Kimonos, and I thought we could try our new Lyra pencils.

I remember having pencils like this as a kid, they're colored pencils to the untrained eye, but when you read the fine print, you find out adding water turns them into watercolors! 

They even come with their own paintbrush. 

I told my daughter to color her flowers on her project and was so excited to show her this magic trick!

I found this Kimono Doll from Crayola and I printed a bunch so she could make as many as she wanted.

Then, for the fun part! I showed her what happens when we add water to the pencil.

She loved it, and spent the rest of the afternoon painting an army of paper dolls.

You can find more of my inspiration for home schooling lesson on pinterest here and here.  What are your favorite toddler projects? Do you have any units on diverse cultures? Tell me about your home/non/un-schooling journey in the comments!

     

While this post was created in partnership with Stubby Pencil Studio the view points and opinion are, as always, mine and mine alone.  I only collaborate with companies I believe in and products I authentically want to share.