- Illustrations are embroidered
- Counting book with a few Vietnamese words
- End notes have cultural information refering to each page for plenty of rabbit trails
- Tet is the Lunar New Year Celebration. When Bill went, the whole country took at least a 2 week vacation around Tet!
A Boat to Nowhere by Maureen Wartski
- Reading book for junior high. I read aloud to 3rd grade boys
- Story of an old man and 3 children escaping from communist Vietnam in a sailboat. Violence, starvation, indifference by others, heavy topics but the boys loved it. The sequal is too heavy for younger kids. Better for junior high or older
Beyond the East Wind by Quyen Van Duong
- Lyrically told Vietnamese legends, great for narrations
- The kids narrated the first story about how Vietnam began
Our Lady of La Vang--Marian vision
- We used this version of the history of OLOLV for a narration
- There is a chapel to OLOLV at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception with lovely mosaics
- There are many stories of Christian persecution including Joseph Tuc who at age 9 refused to be an apostate and was martyred
- The link has pictures of the paper dong. There are also coins (we have some). When Bill went in 2007, it was uncommon for anyone to use credit cards.
- We discussed the exchange rate and the price of breakfast there and here. We used an online exchange site to convert from $ to VND and from VND to $.
- You can find a picture of the dong sign online too.
- We put paper dong in a red envelope in their flap book
Map--link to line maps of Vietnam. We made legends and colored in surrounding countries to put in our flapbooks.
- We made flag flaps for the front of our books. The star was an intersting math problem--for me!
- on the reverse we glued the flag quiz from the link
- Our friend told us that the old Vietnamese flag--before socialism--was quite different
Tet Dragon--we made one for our own dragon dance on Tet
Paint a Chrysanthemum
- We used the book Language of Flowers by G. Scoble which talks about flower language. It has photos of flowers so we practiced painting a Chrysanthemum from the picture in the book. Some aisian artists spent a lifetime just trying to paint one.
- The meaning of flowers to the Vietnamese we found in Culture Shock:Vietnam which was a good resource for me in general.
Tom Dooley--adult book about the Catholic doctor's Navy mission with north Vietnamse refugees before Saigon fell.
