The Dragon Boat Festival, "racing dragon boats" and "eating rice dumplings" are the main holiday traditions of the Guangzhou people. Usually a month before the Dragon Boat Festival each dragon boat racing team will practice every day on the Pearl River, a week before the Dragon Boat Festival is to beat the drum to simulate the official race to rehearsal. On the day of the Dragon Boat Race, both sides of the river are full of spectators. Adults and children alike will cheer and shout for the teams in the race, which is very joyful.

Since the Dragon Boat Festival has become a national holiday, Guangzhou people have had one more chance to get together with their families for the festival, and most of them would make zongzi (rice dumplings) or buy packaged alkaline salted meat zongzi (rice dumplings). When I was a child, my family purchased their own rice dumplings with leaves and glutinous rice, meat and salted egg yolks and steamed them. However, with the improvement of modern living standards, the development of science and technology, and the convenience of diet, everyone is to buy packaged rice dumplings. The freshness of the ingredients in the rice dumplings made by family members, and more importantly, the strong hometown feeling and affection, are what make the rice dumplings so special. Family members chatting and cooking with each other are the rarest of good memories. Parent-child interactions between family members and between parents and children can be deepened through dumpling-making activities.

Duanwu Festival Thinking Maps

The traditional festivals of the Chinese nation have a long history, and the legends of the Dragon Boat Festival are also diverse. Therefore, I would like to make my preschooler quickly understand the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival and the main festival customs through a mind map. By learning about the origins of the Dragon Boat Festival before eating the delicious dumplings, children will treasure and enjoy the festival more.

This Dragon Boat Festival mind map is more suitable for children and parents in primary and secondary schools. If you have less literacy or are a kindergartner like my kindergarteners, we recommend drawing more small icons instead of words when we create the mind maps. All newborn babies begin their understanding of the world from drawings, through sight. Once our children are more literate and have a knowledge base that corresponds to their age, we can use more graphic versions of the mind maps to create a systematic knowledge structure and effectively improve our children's understanding of the world. effectively improve your child's comprehension and memory.

The mind map includes:

Center map (theme, central idea) Level 1 branch (key content) Level 2 branch (core details extended down for the key content of the level 1 branch; the addition of level 3 and 4 branches will be added on their own according to the needs of the theme) Small icons (visualization of the key content to improve comprehension and memory)

If you and your children are interested in learning about mind maps, follow Ms. Sherry and I step by step to learn how to draw and understand this Dragon Boat Festival mind map below!

Center Diagram

The Dragon Boat Festival makes Sherry's teacher the most impressive is "steak dragon boat" and "eat rice dumplings", so I created this cartoon dragon boat biting the three rice dumplings in the river rowing paddle race. The centerpiece represents the theme, the central idea that you want to draw.

Since there are different folk activities or customs to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival in different parts of China, parents and children can choose the pattern that best expresses the theme of the Duanwu Festival according to the local customs in your mind.