Curriculum Review of Streams: Chinese American History for Kids by Essie and Hsin-Fu Wu

A while back I reached out to Essie from Resilient Panda about doing a review for the homeschool curriculum she and her husband Hsin-Fu Wu wrote called Streams: Asian American History for Kids. She sent me a PDF file of it and I have to tell you, I absolutely love it! Thanks, Essie! (In the picture above you can see that I printed it out and put it in a 1-inch binder. I put the pages in sheet protectors so I can easily open and go.)

This is a sponsored post as I received a free copy of the curriculum to review.

I found Resilient Panda on Instagram and really loved what I saw as I scrolled through their feed and what I saw them share about their Streams curriculum. I am always looking for ways to bring history and different cultures into my homeschool. I wanted to teach my kids more about Asian culture as we have many family members of Asian descent and even some relatives living in Asia now.

As a young adult I was able to go to Nepal for six weeks and have such wonderful memories of traveling throughout the country and meeting so many wonderful Nepali people, as well as many people living in a Tibetan refugee camp we visited. We also have several friends that have adopted children trans-racially from China and Taiwan. I wanted to learn more about our family and friends’ culture alongside my children as Asian American history wasn’t a big topic of study when I was in public school growing up.

Streams: Chinese American History is a Charlotte Mason style literature-based curriculum that uses historical fiction, poetry, picture, chapter, and biographical books to walk students through a timeline of Asian American History starting in 1848 with the Gold Rush that brought many Chinese people to San Fransisco to present day. There’s a great blog post on the Resilient Panda Website that breaks down how you can use this curriculum with many different styles of homeschooling if you are not a Charlotte Mason inspired homeschool family.

Streams Week One Book Stack

There are also some recommended supplemental videos you can watch as well, which have been great for bringing the stories we read about to life. The video on Angel Island was really eye opening as to the struggles Chinese people had immigrating to America.

The curriculum is written for grades 1st-6th (6-12 year olds.) I am primarily using this curriculum with my 1st grader. My fifteen year old has sat in on some of the read aloud times and was interested in the stories and I imagine he will be around to listen to the last couple of weeks as we finish up the curriculum.

As suggested in the Teacher Guide, I skipped some of the content that was too mature for my first grader, but we have read most books in the weeks we’ve completed. We are just about to finish up the last couple of weeks and when we do, I told the kids we would go out for Chinese food. They are really looking forward to that!

Another thing that is great about Streams is that it’s super affordable at only $20 for the PDF Teacher Guide. I was able to find most of the books, as well as the supplemental books at my local (rural) library, the cost for the materials for this nine week unit study can be very minimal, especially if you are using it with multiple children.

There are a few main spines of the curriculum and many supplemental book suggestions so you can pick and choose how deep you want to go with the material.

Also, there are several hyper-links to free videos in the Teacher Guide and many of the books recommended are available on YouTube for free if you prefer to watch or can’t find them at the library.

The only two books that I purchased (besides the Teacher Guide) were the poetry books Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island and A Suitcase of Seaweed & more. I couldn’t find these at my local library, but after reading the reviews on Amazon, I decided to buy them for my poetry collection and I’m happy I did.

Week One Books and Teacher Guide

Having homeschooled for almost 13 years, I’ve come across a lot of curriculum and what tends to overwhelm me is busy teacher guides with a million and a half side-quests you can take for busy work. I don’t have time for busy work in my homeschool. I need rich, to the point, solid curriculum I can use open and go style for multiple ages and this history curriculum is exactly that.

There’s enough reading to learn key facts, dates, biographical, and geographical information, enough art and poetry to pique interest in the finer details of the stories, and there’s a video component for those that like to have visual learning.

The teacher guide is straight forward and gives you a complete resource list so you can gather all the books needed for the lessons. There are hyperlinks to videos and supplemental materials as well.

What this curriculum ISN’T is busy work, worksheets, lengthy discussion questions, or fluff.

Everything is intentionally curated to tell the stories of Chinese Americans in a chronological timeline through excellent books to give you a springboard for discussion with your kids as you read along with them. The chapter books are beautiful stories, the picture books have exquisite artwork, and the videos are well selected.

If you are looking for an in-depth open and go history curriculum focused on Chinese American History, this is a great choice! It’s a great compliment and supplemental curriculum if you are learning about Early American History in general, or it’s great as a stand alone curriculum. It’s very flexible to use. The content of the curriculum is fantastic for any student that wants to learn more about Chinese Americans.

One thing we love doing in our family is supporting small businesses, particularly small businesses run by homeschooling families, and I am really excited to share with you Resilient Panda’s Asian American History curriculum. Essie and Hsin-Fu have done a fabulous job on Streams: Chinese American History for Kids.

This is a great curriculum to order and get started with this month as May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Be sure to use the code SHOW10 at checkout for a 10% discount on your purchase.