Exploring Chinese Calligraphy (+ a giveaway)
In Chinese culture, writing is a sacred art form. School children are taught to regard calligraphy with reverence, and are encouraged to practice it only during moments of calm and tranquility.
- Barbara Aria, The Spirit of the Chinese Character
There is something very relaxing about the act of practicing and learning Chinese characters. We love using our Buddha Board to explore, practice, and discover new characters. One of our favorites is the symbol for virtue, which combines modified versions of the characters for foot, true, and heart—relaying the meaning, follow the path of your true heart.
Even Watching is Mesmerizing…
We are also enjoying this lovely Chinese Writing Kit by Wu and Wu. It provides stencils of Chinese characters along with a sweet collection of writing supplies. It is been fun incorporating our new discovervies into our handmade cards and artwork.
A Giveaway…
We just happen to have a few extra Chinese Writing Kits to giveaway to Playful Learning readers! Please leave a comment below to enter. Three winners will be selected and announced here on Monday morning, June 11. Congratulations to Jaclyn, Monique, and Mindy!
Books to Inspire…
- My Little Book of Chinese Words by Catherine Louis
- Liu and the Bird: A Journey in Chinese Calligraphy by Catherine Lious
- The Nature of the Chinese Character by Barbara Aria
- The Spirit of the Chinese Character by Barbara Aria with Russel Eng Gon
Helpful Links…
- Chinese Calligraphy (by children for children)
- Learning Chinese Writing Symbols
- Chinese for Kids
- What’s Your Favorite Animal?
Mariah
@playfullearning
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That writing kit looks lovely! Thank you!
I love the stencils that they have to practice the characters! What a fantastic idea! Thanks for hosting this giveaway!
Wow!!! I have never seen anything like this, what an amazing giveaway! I would love to incorporate this with my kids Chinese studies. Thanks so much for the book suggestions & links as well ♥
Goodluck everyone!
Congratulations Jaclyn! You won the Chinese Writing Kit! Please email me your address so I can send it your way.
Oh my goodness!!!!!! I can’t believe I won! Thanks so much….wow, my kids will LOVE this! I am really excited! Sending you email now ^^
thanks again!
My daughter would love this! I’m putting this in my gift queue!
What a lovely kit. My children would love it!
Congratulations Monique! You won the Chinese Writing Kit! Please email me your address so I can send it your way.
This looks fantastic! We’d love to try this out!
Sarah M
my step-daughter just brought home a book about speaking Chinese. she would love this kit!
Oooo … so adorable! My son recently showed an interest in Chinese characters, asking me what they meant. To which I had to reply “I have no idea!”. We are going to our library this summer for a little research on the topic and wouldn’t this charming little kit be the perfect accompaniment!
I would love to win this kit. I hope that this giveaway is international. Thanks
This is fantastic. The center that I work at has multiple dual language children, and Chinese is one of our top languages among the children. I’ll have to see if I can find the funding to get a couple of these
Would love to use this in our backyard camp this summer. Beautiful!
What a great kit – this would be awesome especially since we have a pen pal who lives in Beijing China. She would get a kick out of getting letters from the kids using this.
Thanks for the chance to win!
Alison
We have just been studying Chinese culture!
Love these kits and would love to win one!
We have yet to explore calligraphy. Thanks for pointing out such a fun exploration!
My boys are always asking about Chinese writing. They would LOVE to win this set!
Oh this kit is so up our alley! The kids would love the stencils!
Thank you Mariah!
xoxo
~ joey ~
This is a lovely kit — fascinating! Thanks for the chance.
That is one cool kit!
Looking forward to using this with my kids! Thanks.
my kids would have a blast with one of those kits. fun!
We have a Chinese daughter, and I’ve been wanting to stencil “welcome” on the playhouse door in both Chinese and Norwegian (the other heritage in our household)! Have you tried any of the iPad apps for Chinese calligraphy? Let us know if you have and you like any of them!
Neat! I recently decided to try Chinese calligraphy with my son so this is timely! Please enter us into the draw.
I woud love to use these in my classroom when we study China next school year.
I love the idea of the stencils. What a fun kit!
I learned Chinese calligraphy when I was in high school and remembered that it took alot of discipline (in controlling the hand) and concentration to do well. My kids are learning Chinese right now and would love to have them learn calligraphy as well.
My daughter is starting at a school which has chinese as their foreign language so this would be a great summer activity!
This is such a cool post. So happy to see the chinese writing kit and stencils. Amazing! Thanks for sharing.
My son takes a Mandarin class and loves it! He would really enjoy this! What a great giveaway.
We’d love to win this. my daughters burthday is in summer and I purchased a pink buddha board, this would go along with it perfectly!
Thanks for the giveaway!
Looks great! Thanks for the giveaway!
Congratulations Mindy! You won the Chinese Writing Kit! Please email me your address so I can send it your way.
So cute! I love this!
Wow, what a fantastic little kit. Thanks for the give away. I love how the characters are combined giving an interpretation of complex words. Never thought of doing it with my children. Thanks for the tip!
This is such an awesome kit! I am just beginning my journey as a Teach For America corps member and was so excited to find this blog! This summer I am teaching reading to rising 3rd graders in Atlanta, Georgia. This kit aligns perfectly with our curriculum on folktales we are working our way though! I am definitely incorporating ideas you posted here into my lesson plans! Thanks so much!!