Our Texas Family: FIAR - The Story About Ping

Well, Great News! We just finished rowing our first book from Five In A Row (FIAR) last week, and I am proud to say that it was a HUGE success!

FIAR is a wonderful curriculum from - Jane Claire and Becky Ann Lambert. The way that the program is designed is that you choose a classic children's story and then read that story to your child every day for 5 days. Then each day, you have a different focus or subject that you springboard from examples in the book and thus delve deeper making the storey even more memorable and fun all the while learning and not even realizing it! The book that you receive with the curriculum had tons of ideas/suggestions on how to get going and get your creative juices flowing! It does take more planning and organizing then any of the other curriculum that I am doing, so I am glad that I only choose one curriculum that required any legwork on my part.

Fortunately, there a lot of great blogs and websites out there that have already done this curriculum and have links and printable galore! Truly, the hardest part....was resisting the urge to do it all!

So for us, this is how our weeks will go; Monday - Social studies and/or Geography

Tuesday - Language arts

Wednesday - Art

Thursday - Science/Math

Friday - Field Trip

Since this was our first row, I really played it safe (and actually plan on the "safe" strategy for the next few weeks) and used a great deal of the ideas seen on delightfullearning.blogspot.com. This is a wonderful site where Michelle has done the Before Five in a Row, and Five in a Row 1 & 2. She has a wonderful way of pulling it all together, and before you know it you are saying to yourself "I can do that!" ....and then you are off and running!

So, here's how it all came together for us!

The book we started with was....

The Story About Ping

Ping was an adventurous duck who lived on a beautiful wise-eyed boat on the Yangtze River. He liked his life on the riverboat just and liked his large family and his kind master. He didn't like to be the last in line to board the boat at night, for that unlucky duck got a loud spank. So what did Ping do when it seemed that he would be the last on line? What else but set out on his own to explore the fascinating world of life on the Yangtze River.
The Story about Ping is one of the best-loved and enduring children's books, both for its spirited and irrepressible hero and for its beautiful evocation of a distant land and way of life. Every child can sympathize with a dawdling duck who wants to avoid a spanking, and share his excitement and wonder as he sails down the river

On Monday, we read the book for the first time and then talked about where China is. We looked at it on our world map, in the Children's Atlas and on our globe. We talked a little about the capital of China and located Bejing on the map. I also, printed some pictures of what some traditional Chinese costumes looked like.

Then, we colored a story disk and placed one on the world map. Next we colored a map and flag of China for our lapjournal, and also talked about the Yangtze river, how long that it is, and to help her with this concept, I calculated distances to places that she know and told her how many trips it would take back and forth to equal that length.

In the afternoon, we made Moon Cake cookies (kiddie style). I found the recipe here, and it even came in a neat little recipe card. Which I think is great because I think we will make a recipe box together in the near future since I think cooking will be a regular feature. I also found a cute little Moon Cake Song that we sang as we made the cookies! The moon festival doesn't actually take place until September 30th this year but it was still fun getting into the mood and all! I am still getting used to having my camera ready at all times, so I forgot to take pictures of us making them but this is the final result.

On Tuesday, we did Language Arts. I taught Renae how to say Hello and Good Bye in Chinese. And then we tried our hand at Chinese hand writing! It was a lot of fun, and really, it turned out better then I had expected!

Our example

Renae's work

We also, discussed what repetition means and then listened for examples in the book, before writing them down for our Lap Journal.

Renae asked if we could make Chinese Lanterns to go along with our moon cookies and I thought that this sounded like a great idea! You gotta love the pirate costume! (I would love to tell you that this is because Halloween is coming up....but honestly, she loves wearing costumes from years past at anytime of the year!)

For Supper we made Moo Goo Gai Pan. I had to find a recipe that didn't include eggs, which was a challenge. And when I did, it was a little bland. So, I added Rice Wine Vinegar, ground ginger and some soy sauce and then it turned out really nice!

Wednesday - Art. Well, we did a paper plate craft to make Ping and it turned out so cute! It was a ton of fun. Also, Renae drew a picture to go along this a poem shown below.

Thursday was science and math. Now since science is a big love of mine I was really looking forward to that day. However, I honestly think I MAY have packed a little too much into that day and may need to consider moving math to another day.....or......not planning quite so much!

As far as what we did.....

Looked a different types of ducks and glued them on separate duck cut outs for our Lap Journal.

Colored coded all of Ping's large family on this counting sheet.

Then we read the book, why Ducks don't get wet by Augusta Goldin. And then did an experiment with oil and water on some precut paper ducks. This was to replicate the fact that after ducks apply oil to their feathers (a process called "preening") which keep the ducks from getting wet. This experiment might have worked better if we had used a feather instead (as mentioned in the back of the book)....or if I was remembering the experiment a bit better and used an eye-dropper to the paper instead of putting it in the water basin.....hmmmm, you be the judge ;)

I also, printed of pictures of different things that float and showed the girls how it is the shape that matters when a boat floats....even big heavy cruise ships. I demonstrated this by using store bought and made a ball (sinks) and then make it into a bowl (floats). FYI - use store bought play dough and not the homemade kind, the homemade started to melt as soon as it got in the water (take my word for it and don't ask me how I know. Should have known better.....hahahaha)!

Anyhoo, then we did an experiment with different items found around the house for what sinks and what floats, complete with predictions before letting the item go in the water.

For the last experiment, I talked about how Ping is able to float/bob/and sink to swim and explained that it all had to do with a bladder inside a duck, which he fills with air to float and then empties it to swim deep. To demonstrate this we used a blown up balloon and then a deflated one. However, you sort of had to "make" the deflated one sink.....but I think she got the idea!

Friday was supposed to be a field trip to the duck pond. However, I ended up running a fever of 101 and so that sort of didn't happen. Oh, well. Some other time I am sure.

Well that was our row. Hope that you liked it! We sure did. Next week we are off to explore France in the book Madeline!

I will be linking up to Delightful Learning blog roll and FIAR link up. As well as, Preschool/Kindergarten Corner at Homeschool Creations, so be sure to go check it out for more great FIAR ideas!