FIAR: The Story About Ping & China

Last week in our Five in a Row study we read The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack.  We ended up reading this for a week then we spent the next week doing a unit on China.

Ping is the name of a domesticated duck who lives on a riverboat on the Yangtze River in China. He gets sent out every morning to go along the river with his relatives, and is expected back every evening. The last duck on the boat would get a swat with a stick and one day he is the last duck. He is afraid to return and spends the night on shore. When he awakens his boat is gone and he is soon caught by a boy on another boat where he worries about becoming their dinner. After some time the boy lets Ping go just as all his duck relatives are getting back on Ping's boat nearby. Ping rejoins his family and happily receives the last duck swat.

We played a sequencing game and raced to put them in order. 

 

We played a trivia game with questions from the book.

They made lots of game pieces, so we can play 2-13 players.

 

We learned lots about ducks and how their feathers are created with oil so they are waterproof.  We did an experiment with oil and water to show how they don't mix.

We also did another similar experiment with layering liquids. 

Click here  for the instructions.  I didn't use the lamp oil on the top because I didn't have any.  It still worked well. 

 

Landon's mom makes really good eggrolls so we went to her house and the boys helped make them.

 

In the story, Ping snatched a rice cake from a little boy's hand.  We went to Cane Creek Park and fed the ducks some rice cakes.  It was a beautiful day and they liked being up close to all the ducks.

 

Here is our book we created: 

 

We watched the story being read on this youtube link:

I hated to take a break in our Five in a Row study, but I wanted to study China more in depth. We used Amanda Bennett's Unit Study: Expedition China. I must admit, I knew very little about China so I learned along with the boys.

 

We learned about the Great Wall of China...

...and made our own.

Here's how to make your own:

 

Materials needed:

-Styrophone sheets

-Foam board

-cardboard

-moss

-watercolor paint

-finger paint

-hot glue gun

 

I used a large sheet of Styrophome and drew the lines I wanted to cut.

Cut away!  I used several different knifes to try and make it cut easiest.  I found that a box cutter worked the best.  This part felt like it might take as long to complete as the Great Wall of China being built, and my hand cramped up.  Landon came in and helped me finish.

This was VERY messy.

 

Glue down the first row on the foam board. 

Cut out cardboard and glue down for the walkway, then add a few more layers.  Landon and I had a competition on building the towers on the ends.  The boys voted on who made the best one.  We tied.  Logan voted for Landon and Lucas voted for me.

They painted the styrophome to look like stone using watercolors.

We used fingerpaint along the base on the foam board.  Add moss and trim the foam board.

 

We also watched Modern Marvels: The Great Wall of China documentary on Netflix. 

 

We learned about the Yangtze River, the setting of The Story About Ping.

 

Inventions from China:

Tea

 

Dominos

 

Chopsticks

We didn't master this.  It is much harder than the video we watched made it appear.

 

Paper

Landon built this frame with a screen stapled to the back.

They loved tearing up the paper strips.

 

Logan now wants to go to China and Lucas wants to see Panda Bears.