The Story About Ping

The Story About Ping (6/6 - 6/10/2011)

This was our very first week of Five In A Row. I went through the lesson suggestions and marked the ideas that I thought were most appropriate for us, and then tried to balance them out over the course of the week. I ended up mixing Social Studies, Language and Art lessons around over several days (as opposed to covering one "subject" each day).

On Monday, we talked about Chinese culture and some of the differences compared to how we live. We talked about “classic” stories, and fiction vs. non-fiction. On Tuesday, we examined the illustrations and talked about what the artist used to draw them, and combining colors to make new ones. We talked about buoyancy and did sinking and floating experiments with a big bowl of water. (C2 especially enjoyed throwing the golf ball in to make a splash!) After we had that all cleaned up, C1 told me she wanted to draw pictures of each object we tested, and say whether it sank or floated. Brilliant! I helped her make a chart of her scientific observations. I was so proud of her for coming up with that on her own (and a little disappointed that I had not!)

On Wednesday, we talked more about the illustrations and viewpoint. We looked at a few things from different points of view to see how our perspective changed. She drew Daddy’s football from two different perspectives, and then practiced her hand at blending different colors of colored pencil to make new colors and give depth like we talked about the day before. Early in the week it occured to me to get a few other books from the library as go-alongs - about China and ducks, and to get a map or globe for geography, and by Wednesday afternoon we finally had a few more library books and my Amazon order for use on Thursday.

Daddy read to her about ducks on Thursday morning before work. We read Ping as usaul, and then looked for China and the Yangtze River on our new inflatable globe. We talked about the Yangtze and how big and sustaining it is. Then we went on a picnic with Pops and Sweetie to feed the ducks at the park. We saw and fed lots of ducks, including a mama and her young ones. We also saw some turtles. We played at the playground, and had a wonderful picnic. Great fun for all of us!

On Friday, we dumped a bunch of coins from Daddy’s jar to count up all the members of Ping’s duck family. We read some more about China, and used a color sheet I found on the internet to color all 68 ducks. She could count them all with just a little help at 40 and 50. We watched some YouTube clips of Chinese music and dance, and when Daddy got off work we went out for Chinese dinner. I wish I knew of a really good Chinese restaurant in our area, as F3 and I were pretty disappointed. I didn’t expect C1 to love much of it, but I was proud of her for trying everything. Her favorites were the tea and the wonton soup. The BBQ pork was okay too.

On Saturday she wanted to do more “studies.” She really enjoyed the week of FIAR. I had one last activity in mind, so I cut out a couple duck shapes from a paper sack, and brushed one with oil, so she could see the paper soak up the water, and then roll off the oiled one. It wasn’t as successful as I had hoped, but it was still fun for her, and that is what is most important right now. We also did a little Explode The Code and Progressive Phonics over the course of the week. I'm feeling pretty good about how things went.