Today is the 5th day of Chinese new year, somehow a traditional celebration for the god of treasure. So we want to do a session about some immortal gods in the Chinese mythology.
The story was about the eight immortals with different special magic tools. They all used to be human but with determination and self cultivation, and lots of good deeds, the earned their place of immortality. They had a drink party together and afterward they decide to cross the eastern sea using their special magic tool (which in "real life" used to help mankind to heal etc). Some used lotus flower, some used a magic flute (which the music heals people) etc.. Then they made so much turbulence in the sea that the sea god was not too happy.
We stopped the story there in order for the kid to imagine what happens next - did they fight? who won? did they shake hands? etc..
Then we learnt the two characters 八(eight) 仙,僊, (immortal god) where the traditional Chinese was written as someone watching him elevate up in the sky as he reaches "enlightenment" or another explanation is someone who has gone to another place since the main part of the character is the same as the character of 遷(迁) which means moving somewhere else, even the simplified version is very interesting - it means a person next to a mountain (as they usually do self cultivation away from urban life).
We looked at some paintings by famous artist Fan Zeng 范曾. Then we try to make some drawings of the story and our own additions with colour pens.
We finished with the theme song music video of the 1985 version of the TV series. The lyrics are amazing... only if the children would understand someday :)
Youtube classlink
MTV song
Gratitude to the crew made by mummy and coloured by baby. The red dragon was done by 3 year old herself. Mummy pretty happy with it.
Lovely work below done by
Pic1 - age 8 - the eight immortals with their special weapon
Pic2 - age 8 - the eight new immortals created with the special magic power (invisible spirit cloud, fire, water, wind, earth, plant, dog, cat)
Pic3 - age 4 - the eight immortals
Pic4 - age 4 - one immortal was smashed by the sea dragon (horizontal thing is dragon and the little one is the defeated one)
Pic5 - age 3 - the right one is a robot immortal with 葫芦 (Hulu, Calabash) in his hand, the middle one is the one with magic flute riding on red Chinese cloud, the left is the old man (robot again) riding the donkey, he can see mini humans in his eyes. They all stand on a huge yellow cloud together.
Pic6 - age 3 - Zhang guolao immortal riding donkey but not backwards anymore
Pic7 - age 3 - He Xiangu immortal with long hair and her lotus magic flower