The Story About Ping

This was the first book that we did with Five in a Row and I couldn't believe how much fun we had.

For Literature we discussed what a Classic story is. We made a timeline so that the kids could see how long ago the book was written (1933). We put up pictures of the family members on the year each was born. Now Hailey says hello to everyone on the way down the stairs! We also talked about the difference between Fiction and non-fiction books and reviewed a couple of unfamiliar vocabulary words.

We all learned a lot about China too. We went through several extra books from the library discussing Chinese culture and the differences of a lifestyle in China and that of America. We also learned that the Yangtze River that Ping lived on is the third longest river in the world! We even managed to cook a Chinese meal from scratch - Egg drop soup, Potstickers, veggie stirfry, and almond tea cakes for dessert. Yum! Of course, the table was lit with Chinese lanterns.

For Science we did a few experiments on bouyancy since the boy in the boat uses a barrel as a flotation device. The kids had a blast collecting all sorts of objects and guessing whether the would sink or float before chucking them into the sink. We also learned that some objects will either sink or float depending on their shape - solid ball vs. boat shape, whether they were filled with air, or saturated with water.

We discussed all of the different types of ducks (diving, dabbling, whistling, sea, stiff-tailed) and what made them different. Also reviewed how ducks swim, what they eat, their lifecycle, and parts of a duck. Then we went to feed the ducks and got to see everything up close. There were a couple of young ducklings old enough to be away from Mama duck and there were quite a few Canadian geese there too, so we got to see the differences between the birds.

In order for Hailey to visualize just how many ducks Ping had in his family we printed out a picture of the Yangtze River and Hailey used a small duck stamp to stamp all 67 members of Ping's family.

Finally we did some story sequencing cards and Hailey dictated to me her own Story About Ping. Which really followed more along her own interests, but that of course did make it her very own!

Getting it Together

Okay, so we have finished rowing our first week (and a half) of The Story About Ping. After first going through the suggestions made in Five in a Row I was ready to get off to a running start. Since I am planning on doing lapbooks with each of the stories that we row I knew that I would need a little guidance to get started. I found loads of information on HomeschoolShare.com. The folks at HSS have very generously put together tons of wonderful information based off of the same literature based model as FIAR, as well as some Unit studies. I spent quite a bit of time poking around here since they have a section dedicated to FIAR supplements - perfect for lapbooking. This was also where I learned about a couple of other wonderful websites.

Enchantedlearning.com requires a 20 dollar per year membership to access most of their resources, but I consider it money well-spent. They have a great selection of crafts, worksheets, graphics, facts, and coloring pages to supplement whatever you may be studying at the moment.

HandsofaChild.com is an excellent resource, especially for those new to lapbooking and unit studies. They offer downloadable Project Packs as well as those that are in a printed format. They have already done a lot of your work for you by gathering graphics and consolidating questions for you to review with your little one. I just love all of the movable graphics that were available to use in the Story About Ping Project Pack!

Tomorrow I will post about our first week of rowing the Story About Ping and hopefully some pictures too!

Our Curriculum

So we have decided to make the basis of our curriculum based off of the Five in a Row model. We are now the proud owners of Five in a Row Volume 1 and are waiting patiently for Volume 3 to arrive as well. Five in a Row is a literature based model. Each week we choose a book listed and form our studies by pulling from the book. I had never really thought about it, but our story time was actually learning time after all. As long as we made sure to take the time and explain questions that come up, it is amazing what you can learn and build upon from classic children's stories.

We have already been working on reading and handwriting. For reading we are using Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons . I was skeptical at first since it seemed to be a fairly strict learning method, but we have adapted it to our needs and it is so enjoyable to see how quickly Hailey is progressing. While 100 Easy Lessons has handwriting practice in each lesson, I have opted to skip these as we are teaching cursive first. She started by working on the letters of her name though we are not joining letters yet. I am using a wonderful handwriting program StartWrite that allows you to create handwriting practice sheets in whatever method of writing you choose. My favorite part is that you get to change the font size!

I was planning on waiting until after our move before we started, but Hailey was making sure to ask me several times a day when we were going to start school. I just couldn't take it anymore :). Of course, ever since we have started she is continually asking "Can we do more school now mommy?" So, I guess that I really haven't solved anything after all!