Fun With Current Affairs

1) The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Conflict From The Bees' Perspectives

With the Bees growing older, I am beginning to inculcate some current affairs and general knowledge of the world to them - through good old newspapers. Both the Bees already have exposure to reading the newspapers weekly (not daily yet!) and discussing/writing articles analytically in school.

This year, Little Bee's usual show-and-tell in school was replaced by a "news sharing" session, which encouraged each student to bring a news article to school every Tuesday, present it to their friends, and then have an open discussion about the news article. I love this activity because it encouraged the little kids to enhance their knowledge of current affairs, motivate them to read the newspapers regularly, and to nurture critical thinking skills when asking probing questions about the articles.

On the other hand, Big Bee's school also required her to write 5 key points about a fortnightly news article she selected, as well as a small paragraph about why she was interested in the article.

One night back in September, Little Bee wanted to bring to school an article on the intricate turmoil of the Diaoyu and Senkaku Islands between Japan and China. Because of the complicated nature of the whole conflict, I had to use diagrams, maps and very simple language to explain to the Bees what these all mean. After a lengthy explanation, I asked them on their thoughts and viewpoints, and also got them to draw out the whole conflict in simple sketching. Here were their respective theories in their own words when I asked them what would they do if they are leaders in China or Japan:

a) Big Bee's theory: Split the islands in half, and get the leaders of Japan and China to shake hands and be friends! OR both countries should agree to bomb the islands and both will have nothing, so there will be no conflicts!

b) Little Bee's theory: Japan and China will stop fighting soon, and then both will forget about the islands!! Then, suddenly the China President will go to the islands and realise that the Japanese are still there. Then, he will get very angry, and China will have a war with Japan to fight for the islands again!

What does each theory tell you of the Bees' personalities? :)

2) Newspaper Treasure Hunt

2 nights ago, we played treasure hunt - not around the house nor in a park - but with good ol' Straits Times. I thought this would be a fun way to encourage them to flip through the newspapers and encourage them to read the latest news through directed questions from me. I had to ask different levels of questions to Big Bee and Little Bee because of their age differences, but nonetheless, they had fun flipping through the papers frantically and smudging their fingers with the newsprint. Here were some of the questions I asked each of them:

a) To Big Bee
- Which country did Obama go today? (It was a tricky question because the front page of Straits Times had a picture of Obama talking to the Thai Prime Minister, and Big Bee almost said he was in Thailand, but changed her answer as she read deeper into the article. He was actually in Myanmar on Monday.).

b) To Little Bee
- How many runners participated in the Run For Hope marathon? Why do you think they are running for hope?

They did not let me off the hook easily as well. They insisted I must be part of the game too - and Big Bee ended up asking me to summarise the whole Israel-Palestine conflict to them (which I had immense difficulty explaining the reasons why they were fighting using kiddie language, so I ended up talking about air raids instead!).