Killington Elementary School The Cultures of China Projects Grades Five and Six January-February 2012
Painting by Hannah and Alec
Chinese Giant Panda By Bridgit & Adare
 
January 30, 2012
There are many animals in China. One of their favorite animals is the Giant Panda. Giant Pandas are an endangered species. To protect the pandas, 240 pandas were captured from the wild and put in Shanghai Zoological Park to protect them and make sure they didn’t die. About 100 Giant Pandas survived in 2008 in natural breeding centers. Shanghai Zoological Park began to raise Giant Pandas in 1957. From 1957 until 1994, 15 Giant Pandas babies were born, but no babies survived. The mother Giant Pandas didn’t have enough milk in her for two babies so if she had two babies, she would leave one of the babies to starve and die and the other to care and love for. The Giant Panda eats bamboo; it’s the Giant Pandas favorite snack. A Giant Panda’s daily menu consists almost entirely of the leaves, stems, and shoots of various species. The Giant Panda is getting extinct because the women Giant Panda can’t find male pandas to mate with and the Giant Panda can’t find food because their habitat is being destroyed by earthquakes, killing all of their food and them.
China’s Plants
By Angelina 1/20/12
China has amazing plants. Their gardens are built by different people. For example the vast gardens were built by emporors, while the small gardens were built by scholars, poets and former government officals. China has 7,000 species of woody plants and 2,800 are odd tree species. The smallest tree species in China is the bonsai. The bonsai tree takes lots of work to take care of. One thing is that you need to do lots of leaf trimming. But unlike their bonsai tree, America’s trees grow tall and need to to be in soil outside. Another famous flower is the lotus a pink beautiful flower. Some lotus grow in Green Lake Park, China. Thirdly, there is bamboo. Bamboo is hollow and is the favorite food of the panda. Finally, there are peach trees that grow in China. Peaches were first grown in China. The peach trees are grown by Chinese farmers. Peach trees are grown in USA, but they were first grown in China. Those are a few of China’s famous plants.
Chinese Silk Dharma 1/20/12
The Chinese mostly wear silk. This is how silk is made: it takes about seven steps. Step 1: You need to feed the silk worms. The silk worms only eat mulberry leaves. Step 2: You let the silk worms spin cocoons. Step 3: You dip the cocoons in hot water to dissolve the sticky stuff. Step 4: You take the cocoons out of the water and unwind the silk fibers. Step 5: You take the silk fibers and spin the fibers into thicker threads. Step 6: You dye threads with the color of your choice. Step 7: You weave the thread into silk clothing. A lot of the clothes Chinese wear are silk because they make silk in China. Most of Chinese traditional clothing is silk.
China’s Language By Katelynn
Chinese is one of the oldest places and has one of the oldest languages.
Instead of memorizing 26 letters in the alphabet they memorize 50,000 characters that each represent words and/or sentences. There are about 6 different types of chinese languages like manderin and cantonese. Language in China can have different meanings than other languages. Chinese languages are one of the oldest languages in the entire world! China, Bejing and Shanghai all speak all chinese. Borrowing in Chinese can mean one word or represent a character that has a similar pronunciation.
Chinese symbols Josh
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This is what china is known for. The Great Wall of China, 4, is the biggest structure in the world the size of it is 5500 miles long. Tiananmen square, 5, near Beijing includes the former emperor’s palace but now it’ s a museum. Mount Tai is considered a symbol of heaven because of its temples, ruins, and tablets. #1 is their language. #3 is their flag.
Chinese Money By Tim 1/24/12
Currency is called renminbi in China. Renminbi means people’s money. Their money comes in 1fen 2fen 5fen 1jiao 2jiao 5jiao 1yuan(which you can see on page one).
The U.S has dollars. 1 dollar is the same as 6.59yuan. One Yuan is ten jiao. One jiao is ten fen. Beijing is known for its low prices. The earliest Chinese money was 500 BC. China was the first to use paper money. They made their money into a money sword and put it over a sick person’s bed to ward off evil spirits.
Chinese Technology
By Kyle and Danny
The Chinese are well known for the HSR (high speed rail) in China. These trains go 124 mph at an average but can reach speeds of up to 186mph. The rail system has 2,184 miles of track spanning across the country. China has more high speed railway tracks that the rest of the world combined. China also is very well known for its mass production of steel. The main reason that China is able to sell the steel so cheap is because the workers are barely getting paid, if any.
The Interesting Lands of China and the U.S.A. By Will 1/20/12
China
U.S.A.
China’s land area is 9,596,961 sq km. USA’s land area is 9,826,675 sq km. USA has a bit more land than China. China’s population is 1,338,299,500 people. USA’s population is 312,882,925 people. China has a billion more people than the USA. There are over a billion people living on not a large amount of land. That means China has a lot of families that don’t have homes and don’t have food. USA has a lot of space and places to live because there are not as many people as China and USA has a lot of space so families can live and be happy. China’s water area total is 27,060 sq km in water. You need a lot of water to live and to grow crops. USA has 664,709 sq km total water area. That is a lot more then China. For more than a billion Chinese people, it would not be easy to share that amount of water. USA is the 3rd biggest country in the world and China is the 4th biggest country in the world. USA and China are actually big countries.
Chinese Sports VS. USA Sports BY TOBY 1/20/12
Chinese sports only • Dragon Boat Racing American and Chinese sports • Football • Baseball • Basketball 打篮球” (play basketball) • Hockey • Skiing • Swim • Tennis • Wrestling American sports only • Soccer
I noticed that there are more sports that both Chinese and Americans play.
The Chinese Festivals By Quinn
January 30, 2012
In America we celebrate holidays like Christmas, Chanukah, Easter, Thanksgiving and Saint Patrick’s Day, but the Chinese celebrate other holidays. One of their holidays is the lantern festival.
On the 15th day of their first Chinese month of the year, people have a Lantern parade and lion dance celebrating the first full moon. Eating tangyuan or balls of rice flour, the people do their final day of celebrating the New Year and enjoy them self. The most famous holiday is the Chinese New Year. It starts on the lunar New Year’s Eve. Families clean and decorate to sweep the old year away. When the relatives arrive they are generally wearing red to bring good luck. Then the families eat a big meal consisting of duck, crab and pork using chopsticks. After that the whole Family goes outside to watch fireworks.
Chinese Education By Kiara
In China education is required and free. There is only a small fee paid for books and uniforms. Each class averages 35 students. Kids start going to school at age 6 or 7 and most kids stop going to school at age 15. There are a growing number of private schools for the wealthy Chinese. In high school, Chinese students start preparing for the National University Entrance Examinations which is like a Chinese version of the SAT’s. They take the test in the summer and it determines what university they will go to. Students in all grades attend school 5‐6 days a week. Chinese students study Chinese, English, science, math, history, literature, music, art and physical education. Sports and music are common after school activities.
The Beautiful Chinese Artwork By Alec & Hannah 1‐20‐2012
Chinese art is the oldest style of art in the world.
Sometimes Chinese artwork is religious like Buddhist art. Chinese artwork includes making sculptures, paintings, jade and used ivory and glass. They also used many different types of tools to make different masterpieces. When it came to paintings, they often used water colors. Chinese art is often paintings of landscapes. Chinese art is very interesting.
In Early Chinese art they made pottery, bone tools, and jade or ivory carvings. But ritual bronze was probably the best of all those things. Ritual bronze is when the Chinese artists would cast and mold bronze into unique pots. They are found green today because like copper, bronze turns green if not polished and cleaned often.
There is also one more thing in Chinese art that interests us, the Caves of a Thousand Buddha’s. The Caves of a Thousand Buddha’s are caves throughout China that have sculptures, wall paintings, and scrolls. Buddhist artists made them for religious reasons. These are some reasons why Chinese art is amazing. ‐ Alec and Hannah
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