History

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14544388

This 5 minute video is useful to place the advent of Chinese writing in the context of:

- writing as fundamental to human culture as it allows communication to stand the test of time (record history)  

- the reality that prior to the ability to travel, writing systems developed independently in different places across the world and hence different systems of writing developed and evolved over time and still exist

Are you a Primary/Elementary Mandarin teacher looking for resources to use in your class?

Are you a Primary/Elementary class teacher looking for resources to use for class enrichment about China?

Do you have your own recommendations to add to this list?

Are you looking for information about Chinese Dynasties, The Cultural Revolution, China’s relationship with Europe or China’s timeline?

The Asia for Educators website from the Weatherhead East Asia Institute at Columbia University is well worth a visit.  It is packed full of information about China but other Asian cultures too.  Whilst the majority of the resources are historically orientated, the are a number of other cross-curricular resources.   One particularly useful function is being able to search for content by time period history from the homepage.  This is a simple but effective.