OLYMPIC FLAMES!

The second week of August, we began studying the modern Olympics and their symbols and China. We traced the route of the Olympic flame on a map and the boys created their own Olympic flames. We then had our own torch relay where Carter came down the stairs with his torch and lit Cooper's flame on the bottom step and Cooper proceeded to run his relay route!
The boys and I followed the route online as well and then looked at the great pictures and architecture in each city that the torch passed through. Click on the link to see one of the best web sites I found to trace the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay Route.
While we did not get into the human rights discussion and the controversy surrounding the Olympics in China, I did think that this was a good opportunity to tell the boys that there were people in some of the torch relay cities who were not happy about the Olympics being in China and they tried to stop the Olympic flame. When they asked why, I just told them that the government in China would not let their people be free to do whatever they want, like we are here in the U.S.A.. I told them that the Chinese people could not go to whatever church they wanted or have as many children as they wanted and that they could not say anything that they wanted without being afraid that someone would hurt them or their family. They understood these facts and then we just talked about how we should pray that the Chinese people will someday be able to do all the things that we are able to do in the Unites States of America!!