I decided that I would do Five in a Row with Lane this "school year". It's another 2 1/2 months til Lane turns five, so I thought this would be a great way to do "preschool" with him. You read the same classic children's book five days in a row (or a total of five days over the course of about two weeks in our case :)) and complete a different activity related to a different content area each day you read the book. History, art, science, literary tools authors use (repetition for example), math, etc. No rigid curriculum, just a neat way to learn about different subjects through the books we're reading!
Lane colored certain numbers of ducks certain colors to represent Ping's (the yellow duck), mother, father, two sisters, three brothers, seven aunts, eleven uncles, and forty-two cousins. Forgive me if I got some of the numbers wrong!
Ping was written in 1933. We made a timeline that goes from 1900-2012 and put all our immediate family members on it to give Lane some idea of how long ago that was. In FIAR Lane will color a story disc for each book and place it on the timeline. The point is to define a classic book - one that is so good that parents read it to their children generation after generation.
Ping takes place on the Yangtze River in China. In FIAR you also put a story disc on the map wherever the story took place. Look close and you can see Ping the Duck in China on our world map!
In the story, a boy that lived on a houseboat lured Ping to his boat with rice cakes. The boy, as apparently all boys that lived on boats on the Yangtze River, spent all day with a wooden barrel tied to his back with a rope attached that was also tied to the boat so if he fell in the river he would float and his family could pull him back in. Outside of Starbucks last Sunday, Lane and I did a 'bouyancy' test on several small items. He predicted which would float and which would sink!
The illustrations in Ping were done with colored pencils or crayons. Lane used colored pencils to mix colors like the artist did. He also drew Ping in the river trying to find his parents.
We also did a couple of math activities - basically adding together the numbers of the groups of Ping's relatives.
And we made a lapbook to go with it.
Next, Lentil!
