More Story of Ping~ {FIAR}

We missed a whole week of school due to sickness 

{although learning truly never stops}

but so far no one else has gone down! 

SO... this week we are continuing our row of The Story of Ping

and today we watched it on the computer~

The least fav subject for the big girls is math so I chose that as our focus for today.

Really want to show them math is fun!

We read the pages in the story with family information and discussed how we could 'show' the information.

Above you see a chart we made on our white board then pulled out math manipulatives...

First was unifix cubes that we placed on signs made with family members listed~

 Everyone worked on a number they could manage from bitties to boys to girls.

Once one to one was matched I had them snap so we could compare using lots of math vocabulary.

The cubes were an easy way to create a bar graph and talk about it.

Our next manipulative was links and followed same procedure...

matched to our sign then linked them to compare~

 Then our very favorite thing was using the balance scale.

I had EK&SJ place all their cubes on one side then each of the others added their's to other side...

lots of observations were made without my input at all~

Sometimes the best learning occurs when a foundation has been laid and free exploration is given~

Placed all the learning materials at their table today during rest

and look forward to watching/hearing what they discover!

Math might just be fun after all. :)

IT WORKED~

The Story of Ping {FIAR}

Not going to lie... no one was feeling school today

so you've heard the saying

Fake it until you Make it???

We decided a walk was what we all needed

and came back to a very fun morning of The Story of Ping~

 Before reading the story I had EK help me paint hands to make duck puppets.

She did the painting and I placed the hands.

 Always so fun to see their faces as we tickle their hands with paint.

{especially Holly! she was amazed!}

We cut the details, added a wiggly eye, and feathers then cut a mitt puppet to glue it all too.

The next part was a little babish for EK and SJ but they were good sports helping me with a song~

http://youtu.be/FG6GXdUOR_Y?list=FLPMrQfAin9iScwPJziGPNKw

Let them act out the song with their puppets.

The young 4 LOVED it!

EK and SJ will be collecting duck facts this week and making a non fiction book to share with us.

We also began a chapter book read along Little Pear~

Everyone listened and I had EK/SJ sketch drawings in their journals for first two chapters.

They will also write their thoughts for each chapter as well.

A good start to our first school week in August!!!

Ping and Math~

After reading today we decided to find out just exactly how many family members were in Ping's family~

 We grabbed our bear counters and made some counting mats~

 As the younger ones counting onto the mats, EK began adding up the groups on the white board~

 We also used our base ten blocks to build the numbers too~

 We thought we had a big family until we counted Ping's!

Great Math Day!

 

Color Pencil Drawings~

Today we read our book of the week, Ping, again and talked about the illustrations. We learned they were drawn with pencils so we decided to try our hand at it also~

We also painted hand print ducks and will finish them tomorrow!

Ping~

Today we began our FIAR book study on Ping. They LOVED it especially because the setting is so familiar to them.

After reading we printed maps of China and located the Yangtze River, we found each one's province/city~

We also learned all about map keys and made one for our maps. They already can't wait to see what we're doing tomorrow!