nǐ hǎo! After reading Mr. Wood’s post on how big China is, I wondered what our travels might look on a map. Using Google maps and Google Earth I created a map of our travel plans while in China. When you look at the map you can see just how far we are traveling! Check out the map here . I’ll post the Google Earth file in a future post. Xièxie ~ Mr. Crawford
Archive for February, 2009
Find Us On The Map
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009How Big is China?
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009nǐ hǎo!
I’ve always thought of China as a huge country, much larger than the United States. However, it isn’t much bigger than the US, if we look at land mass.
China = 3,705,820 square miles (3rd largest)
United States = 3,618,765 square miles (4th largest)
China is only about 87,000 square miles larger than the US. That’s about the size of Minnesota.
Canada is only slightly larger than China, but Russia is nearly twice the area.
—-
I’m guessing that we think China is much larger because its population is so much larger than the US.
China = 1,321,851,888 people (Ranks #1)
United States = 301,139,947 (Ranks #3)
The US has about 300 million people.
China has about 300 million PLUS another BILLION!
That’s more than 4 times the number of people in the US.
Who Ranks #2?
India with 1,129,866,154 people.
It’s population is almost as large as China but with a much smaller land area. (1,269,338 square miles, 7th largest land area)
I live in a very small town in Connecticut. I bet China is going to feel crowded to me.
So, where did I get the statistics in this post?
CultureGrams This is a great resource for information on countries, states in the US, and Provinces in Canada. It is a subscription service. If you are a student or teacher at Beecher Road School, you may get the login details from the school library. Then you can use it at home too!
zàijiàn
Mr. Wood
Passport
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009It wasn’t until recently that I had thought about the need for an up-to-date passport, but now I have one. I first had to search to find my old passport, which expired ten years ago, and research what I needed to do to get a current passport. After searching the Internet I found the United States Department of State had a website dedicated to assisting U.S. citizens in obtaining and renewing a passport. The directions were fairly simply, I needed two current passport photos, one form of photo identification, a passport form, and a check to pay for the processing the forms. In my case I also needed my expired passport book. I had the pictures taken a local CVS store and I was able to do the rest at the Amity Post Office. I also had my passport book expedited because I needed it quickly to secure airline tickets and a travel visa. In the end, I received my new passport book in about ten days. One thing checked off the list!
There is also a new form of identification for people traveling by land or sea to other countries in North America called the U.S. Passport Card. All the information you might need about passport books and passport cards can be found at http://travel.state.gov/passport
Mr. Crawford
Students May Ask Questions
Saturday, February 21st, 2009We welcome questions from students about our preparations and travel, as well as about China and the schools we visit. We are not experts on China and we will not be experts when we return from China. However, will share what we see and hear and experience in hopes that it helps to answer your questions.
We will do our best to answer questions in future posts to this blog. We will not be able to email responses directly to you, so watch the blog!
Click here to download a flier that includes information on how to email us a question.
When you write your question, please include the name of your school, town, and state. We are interested to know what schools are following this project. Please do not include any personally identifiable information. And please ask permission from your parents or teacher before sending an email.
We will try to include the answer to your question in one of our posts.
Have fun!
Mr. Crawford and Mr. Wood
Learning to Speak Chinese
Thursday, February 19th, 2009Nǐ hǎo!
When traveling in another country, a good way to make friends is to know how to speak in their language. In such a short time, I know I cannot learn to speak Chinese, but I can learn to say a few things.
So far, I’ve learned to say things like:
Hello. Goodbye. Please. Thank you.
and
I am a teacher. My name is Mr. Wood. I’m an American.
and of course…
Where’s the bathroom?
Shì is Shì
In English we use many different forms of verbs like:
I am. You are. He is. We are. They are.
In Chinese the verb stays the same…
Wǒ shì. Nǐ shì. Tā shì.. wǒmen shì.. Tāmen shì.
Maybe this is going to be easier than I thought!
If you’d like to learn Chinese with me, here’s a website with some words and phrases:
Word of the Week from the Asia Society.
And here are two books with CDs that I have been using to learn Chinese:
Get Talking Chinese from DK Publishing
Chinese for Dummies from Wiley Publishing, Inc.
That all for now!
zàijiàn,
Mr. Wood
Nǐ hǎo!
Monday, February 16th, 2009In this blog we will share our preparations and experiences as we prepare to travel to Beecher Road School’s two sister schools in the Shandong Province of China.
We will try to capture all the details and preparations needed to travel to China and capture the sights and sounds of China while we are there. We will share many of our experiences with text, photos, and hopefully video and audio podcasts. We will also be sharing cultural and geographical information that we learn about our host country, cities, and schools.
We are grateful to the Woodbridge School District for funding this project; the Connecticut Shandong Principal and Teacher Shadowing Program for making all the arrangements for the trip; our hosts in China; and the many colleagues and friends who are supporting us in this adventure.
We hope you enjoy sharing in our adventure.
Xièxie (Thank you)
Mr. Crawford & Mr. Wood