All Things Beautiful: Asian History

Showing posts with label Asian History. Show all posts

Medieval Asia: Vietnam and Thailand: The Khmer Empire

part of a page from Quentin's (age 10) history notebook

What we know about the Khmer Empire is from Chinese histories because the Khmer wrote books on paper, palm leaves and vellum which were destroyed by fire, rot and termites.
The Khmer Empire began about 802 in the area that is now Cambodia when it united the people living in the area. The Khmers conquered Thailand and Vietnam. The kings were Hindu but most of the people were Buddhist.
In 1444 invading Thai armies forced the Khmer to abandon their main city. From then on, Cambodia was dominated by the Thai kingdom of Siam.

World Geography: Japan

Sam's map

Our first stop is Japan or Nippon as it is called by its people or Land of the Rising Sun. Japan is home to Mount Fuji, typhoons, Samurai, bonsai, haiku and sushi.

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We have made maps showing where the ancient Japanese began settling, and later we explored Medieval Japan's Samauri. and just recently we studied the Meii Restoration in Japan and Japan's takeover of Korea.

We have also made a page for Japan in our World Postcard-Geography Album.

James' map of Japan

This time, in addition to making a map of Japan, we explored their culture.

Quentin's Japanese Bunraku Theatre

A pop-up picture showing a typical scene from a Japanese Bunraku theater performance. This type of theater is the main subject of the book The Master Puppeteer by Katherine Paterson.

Alex's Folded Paper Kimono Doll

We ate at a Japanese restaurant.

Russia- Expanding and Modernizing {1682-1900}

{Previous post on Russia - Changes in Russia 1350-1613}

Quentin's History Journal page

Peter the Great 1682-1725

Alex's History Journal page

Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia 1762-1796

Nicholas II becomes Tsar of Russia in 1894

Matryoskkas or Nesting Dolls

"The first Russian nesting doll (matryoshka) was born in 1890 in the workshop "Children's Education" situated in Abramtsevo estate new Moscow. The owner of Abramtsevo was Sava Mamontov - industrialist and a patron of the arts. The end of the 19 century in Russia was a time of great economic and cultural development. Mamontov was one of the first who patronized artist who were possessed by the idea of the creation of a new Russian style." -Russian Crafts

We read stories about nesting dolls and made these cute paper ones.

Another great craft project is a Russian "nevalyashka" doll at Almost Unschoolers.

The Islamic Empires in the Renaissance

(Previous posts: Marco Polo's Travels Through Persia, The Mongols, India )

map from Story of the World III Activity Guide

During the Renaissance there were three areas that rose as powerful Islamic Empires. At the beginning of the 1500's, Persia (now called Iran) regained independence under the Safavid dynasty. Persia soon became one of the leading cultures of the world. Safavid Persia was continually under pressure from the west and the Turks in the east, until Abbas I (1571-1629) came into power and created a cultural renaissance in Persia.

The Ottomans were Muslim Turks who built a large empire, with Istanbul as its capital. During the 16th century, the Ottomans expanded their empire, seizing land in the Middle East, North Africa , Russia and Hungary. In the mid-1500's they threatened Europe by attacking Vienna, and also a sea battle near the Greek coast. They also battled the Persians.

The Moguls were Muslims from the area now called Afghanistan. Like their ancestors, the Mongols, the Moguls were great warriors. Beginning in 1526, they began taking control of the land in India. They also built many beautiful buildings, the most famous being the Taj Mahal.

One of the things these Islamic cultures had in common was their love of beautiful designs. They loved tiled walls and floors and often make lovely patterns with the tiles often repeating the patterns in tesselations.

After looking at some of these patterns, we got out our pattern blocks and played around with making designs. We looked at how the shapes fit together to make it easy to tesselate them. The hexagon, if cut in half forms two trapezoids. If you cut out a equilateral triangle from the end of a trapezoid, it forms a rhombus.

Quentin and I cut out these shapes in colored paper...

and James used these shapes to form a tesselation from a wall from the Book of Kings (Shah-nameh). He found the shapes difficult to align and was a bit frustrated at times,

but I was very pleased with how it turned out.

Can you see the stars that formed in the background around the hexagons?

Changes in Russia {1350-1613}

Previous post on The Rise of the Russians {700-1240}

James'

The powerful kingdom of Muscovy began in Russia in 1280 and in 1328 the head of the Russian Church settled in Moscow. By the 1350's the Tartars were fighting amongst themselves and they were defeated by the Prince Ivan III of Muscovy. In 1480 he declared himself Tsar (emperor) of all the Russians and refusing to pay tribute to the Tartars. He built many beautiful buildings in Moscow.

Sam's map and timeline
worksheets from Sonlight

In 1547 Prince Ivan IV became Tsar of Russia. He was ruthless and cruel, earning himself the title of "Ivan the Terriable."

Alex's

After his reign, there was a chaotic period in Russia's history where several men claimed that they were the true tsar, dividing the country in a civil war. In 1613 the Romanov family took control of Russia and this dynasty would last for 300 years.

Other blogs that have done units on Russia:

Adventures in Homeschooling

A Pilgrim's Heart

Homeschool Creations

{Next Post on Russian History: Russia -Expanding and Modernizing 1682-1900}

China: The Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties (1500-1700)

(Previous post on China's History.)

In honor of Chinese New Year's this week I thought I would take a moment to look at China in the Renaissance period. During the Renaissance, the Ming dynasty goverened from the northern city of Beijing where they lived in a palace in the Forbidden City, so named because only the emperor's family and advisors were allowed to enter. This period is known for it's vases and wooden furniture, but there were also beautiful gardens and illustrated books. Doctors used acupuncture. By 1500 China was almost completely cut off from the rest of the world. During the 1600's the south coast of China was plagued by Japanese pirates.

The Great Wall was strengthened and guards were stationed at it. The taxes were so high and food was so scarce that by the 1630's rebellions broke out and by 1644 the rebels seized the city of Beijing. The emperor's advisors asked the Manchus, a group of people from the north, to help them crush the rebellion. The Manchus did help, but then they took over Beijing themselves, conquering all of China by 1681. The Manchus' rule was called the Ch'ing Dynasty. They won even more land, expanding China's borders, but also made sure that China stayed independent fro the rest of the world.

For our activity this week, I thought that we would focus on the famous vases made from the Ming Dynasty. Using an article I found on e-How, I sent my students on a Ming Vase Treasure Hunt on the Internet. It was a lot of fun and very informative. I had them Google Ming Vases images and then they looked among them for the ones that fit the descriptions.

Look for vases with a narrow neck and flared rim. The pattern on the vase may appear Asian in design and features elaborate designs, which are frequently floral.

Find pictures of vases with a round bowl, long narrow neck which is indicative of a Ming bottle vase. These were common in a white base color with blue detailing.

Another type of Ming vase is a white base with hand-painted decorations in red, blue, green and yellow colors.

The bottom of the vase is inscribed with antique Chinese characters, called reign marks.

Look for pictures of vases with a round bowl and a tubular neck in a light green color, which was a celadon glaze. The patterns will almost seem inscribed or sculpted onto the vase, with a raised effect, as opposed to being painted on.

Other pictures will show a vase with one large round bowl that opens into a smaller, round bowl with a flared rim. Often predominately blue and white in design, the vase may have some red spots included in the design. This style is called a "double gourd vase."

Examine the picture closely for signs of the underglazing on the vase, which was typically white, blue or green. However, a reddish copper underglaze was used in some Ming vases, although they are considered very rare. One red underglaze Ming vase sold for more than $10 million in 2006.

It was hard to find and example of this, but this one was the one sold in 2006 for more than 10 million.

If you would like to do a project with Ming ceramics, you should see the project Momma Teaching 3 at Shady Bayou Academy did with her boys. They made Ming style plates that you can use at the table! This is one of her son's plates.

Tangrams: Lessons in Logical Thinking

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Playing with tangrams can be a lot of fun, but not too many students have looked at them in a systematic way. The seven shapes can give students practice in problem solving and logical thinking and are captivating enough to keep them working at it for a long while. We first began by reading some books about tangrams (see above.)

This graph is from Family Math

Have them make a graph with basic shapes on one side and numbers along another. See if they can figure out how to make the shapes with different amounts of the seven possible shapes. When they figure out how to make the wanted shape out of the prescribed amount of shapes, have them sketch it in the square. Better yet, make a wall sized graph and have them trace over the tangram shapes, cut them out in one piece and glue onto the graph. This is a great family, multi-aged project, saving the easier columns for the younger students and the multi-shape columns for the older students. This is a project that can be done a little bit at a time over a period of days or weeks, as part of their math or during free time.

Another fun way to explore tangrams is to make cookies with them!

I rolled out some sugar cookie dough and I used my wooden tangram pieces for a template...

cut out the seven magic shapes.

I then let them decide what cookie picture they wanted to make and place the shapes correctly.

They added some chocolate or caramel pieces for decorative features.
They baked into large one-piece cookies but you could still see the lines where the tangram shapes fit together.

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