I had written some lesson plans for this week that involved talking about some cultural landmarks in China (and my 4th and 5th graders are already doing a project involving either the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, or the Terracotta Warriors). I ended up adjusting it a bit to talk to the students about where China is in relation to the United States (showing them on a globe), even showing them the approximate route that my flight took to China (over Canada and the Arctic). For the little ones, I then started reading to them from the book "Mandy and Pandy Visit China" which talks about the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, among other things. For some of my students (today it was 4th grade), I showed them a timeline of Chinese history, which is displayed in my room. This gives them some context of just how much time is covered in US History compared to Chinese history. It is a huge difference -- and showing it graphically helped the students grasp the concept more easily.
One other thing that I found my students really enjoy are short videos. I can talk to them about a landmark and they can also research it. However, a video that gives a good panoramic image of the landmark gives the idea better than any verbal description. These are three videos that I found to be quite helpful and informative (and short enough for use in class without taking too much teaching time).
The Great Wall -- one of the best short videos is here:
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/7247-china-the-great-wall-video.htm
From the same series is a video about the Forbidden City:
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/7248-china-chinese-architecture-of-the-forbidden-city-video.htm
I look forward to showing them a couple photos of me at the Forbidden City and Great Wall. I can't do that with the Terracotta Warriors, though...Xi'an was not on the itinerary this time around...and was too far to go for a day trip!
Still, there's a good 4 minute video of the Terracotta Warriors that I will show them instead: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsUE-ZtcUFg
I'm still trying to find the proper balance of talking, videos, and activities. No matter what I do, I do seem to run out of time too quickly at the end of a 25 minute period.