The Story of Ping---FIAR

We rowed The Story about Ping over a few week period, ending with the time about when Chinese new year was starting. We also did a little bit of a study of China since we are reading about ancient China in history.

I really enjoyed this row, and wish I could have done more. We didn't get to do nearly as much as I had planned, and would have liked to keep going. Oh well, we might come back to it later.

This is a fun little story about a Peking duck that lives on the Yangtze river in China, so we also studied ducks a little too. I had great ambitions to go feed some ducks, but it was just always too rainy when we had a chance to go, or we were too busy. Sigh!

Here are the 2 main books we used. Of course, The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack was our main read aloud each day. We also found this Gail Gibbons Ducks! book very useful to find out more about ducks.

A glimpse of the inside of Ducks!

I made this lapbook about ducks for Aric to do. He really enjoyed it. He didn't finish it, so I think we'll fill it out more in the spring and summer when we get out to see the ducks more.

 We had a great duck craft one day from learncreatelove. It was perfect, and the boys loved making them.

We modified ours a bit (the boys' choice), and used wire brads so they had moving parts. They were fun, but they didn't stay in a great position when not played with, so they often looked a little awkward.

We got out our building bricks one day and built the great wall of China. It was pretty fun, and even Aaron built something because he just loves to build.

Aaron built a city with a wall around it. It was something they liked to do in ancient China.

For science we learned about a ducks feathers, and how they have oil that repels the water so it slides right off. We tried the oil on a paper duck experiment to see if we could create the same results.

It was mostly just fun, and helped them to remember why ducks have oil. The paper that had the oil definitely soaked up less of the water.

They all wanted to make their own duck, and try it out on their own.

Both Aric and Alex completed lapbooks about China with some Ping elements. We colored the flag of China, Found China on a map, and other things.

For a math activity we counted Ping's family. Alex really enjoyed coloring them in as we counted them.

We played with tangrams a lot. I have multiple sets of them, including this book and a game called classic tangoes. Alex really liked working on this book, as did a lot of other children. Even the neighbor kids who came over to play enjoyed it when it was out.

Alex did this cat picture mostly. Once he got it he liked doing it over and over again.

As a go along we read this book, Grandfather Tang's Story. It is a fun little story, and shows how to build several different animals.

Aric chose to build the crocodile from the story.

A close up...

I printed up a tangram for Aric to make his own creation. He made this and called it a horse.

On February 8, the start of Chinese new year, we went out for a somewhat Chinese dinner at Panda's Express. Hey, it's cheap, and the kids really like it, so it worked! We had a fun family night to celebrate Chinese new year. It was great.

These were our family's fortunes from the evening. Looks like some great things are coming our way!

It was a fun row. I really enjoy Five in a row. I think it is a great way to plan a unit study, and have some fun learning. I just wish we could do more! Oh well, maybe our next row will be all I dream it to be.