The Story of Ping

A friend introduced us to Five in a Row and I can't believe I hadn't heard of it before.  It is prefect for the kid's ages (In fact I wish we had done this last year!) and it's fairly simple to prep and implement.  The curriculum involves learning by reading a classic children's book once a day for five days (in a row!) and making applications to geography, math, art, etc The Story of Ping was our first FIAR book and we had a blast with it! 

 On Day 1 we found China on the globe and map and then we looked up pictures of the Yangtze River online and talked about how big it was and how scary it must have been for Ping.

On Day 2 we talked about Chinese culture and ate rice with chopsticks.  I taught Scout how to prepare the rice and veggies in our rice cooker (a skill which she has used quite often since then : )

 Yum!  I couldn't believe how excited the kids were to be eating rice and veggies for lunchI let the kids dip their veggies in 2 different Asian sauces...

 Day 3 was our Art day and we talked about the illustrator's use of colored pencils and the use of the color yellow throughout the book.  They got to try out there own artistic ability.

On Day 4, while River was at preschool, Scout applied another Art extension; we studied and practiced techniques for drawing water.

Finally, we ended our week with a Math lesson.  We drew a model of Ping's huge family (including all 42 cousins!) then we used counting bears to represent each family member and discussed grouping and dividing.
We are looking forward to Five In A Row being a part of our curriculum for years to come.