The Story About Ping and Medieval Chinese History

We are starting our study of Medieval Chinese History this week. The Story About Ping, from Five In A Row will dovetail so nicely with our study. Here are our plans:

Day One:

Read The Story About Ping, then talk about Ping's experience when he tried to hide from his responsibility. A few things for the kids to ponder:

* I wonder how Ping felt when he realized he was all alone.
* I wonder what would have happened to Ping if the little boy had not set him free.
* I wonder if the black fishing birds like having the ring around their necks and working for the fishermen. Would they rather work for themselves and get to keep the fish they caught?

Geography - locate China on the globe and put story disk on globe.

Read Chapter 8 (part one) in Story of the World. Color the map of the Yellow River, Yangtze River and Grand Canal. Dig a "canal" in the garden or sandbox.

Make jade beads out of blue/ green Sculpy and bake them.

Add up all of Ping's family members for a quick math lesson. Its a nice practice with adding multiple numbers including double digit numbers. In addition, do some copy work of math facts to help with penmanship and memorization of math facts.

Listen to traditional Chinese music from this site.

We will also try to learn one or two Chinese words per day.

Day Two

Read The Story About Ping then talk about discernment relating to things that look better than they are (the rice cake crumbs that lead to Ping being captured - from the lesson in Five in a Row). Once we talk about the story, have the children give examples of things that look better than they are.

Literature: Talk about fiction and define it ( a story that comes from the author's imagination). Talk about "Once upon a time . . . " as a story starter and work on a story of fiction either together or individually. It would be nice if we also illustrated our story(ies).

Read Yeh-Shen: a Cinderella Story from China.

Do a few pages from Explode the Code and practice reading aloud.

Day Three:

Read The Story About Ping then look at the illustrations and talk about the art medium (colored pencils). Practice drawing water with colored pencils and try to achieve the effect of movement and reflection in the water. I would also like to look at some Chinese art, both in books we own and online.

Talk about reflection and look at reflections in different things (mirror, water, glass).

String the jade beads (from day one) to make a necklace or bracelet.

Read Lon Po Po: A Red Riding Hood Story from China. Also, read The Three Wise Kings by Tomie DePaolo.

Copywork: Practice writing Chinese "sayings" (a few a day for the next 3 days). These will be cut apart and put into homemade fortune cookies.

Math U See math lesson. Read Two of Everything.

Practice reading aloud.


Day Four:

Read The Story About Ping. Practice counting/ adding Ping's family again. Also, count the black fishing birds and the rice cake crumbs. Practice Math U See lesson.

Read Chapter 8 part two in The Story of the World. Look at pages in Usborne Encyclopedia of World History. Look at the links.

Create a small bowl out of sculpy. Bake it. This will be an lacquered bowl (from SOTW Activity book).

Do a few pages from Explode the Code. Practice reading the new words. Practice reading aloud.

Read aloud The Emperor and the Kite.

Copy work: more Chinese sayings for cookies. Practice drawing Chinese words.

Day Five:

Read the Story About Ping.

Read some Chinese Poetry. Here is a nice site with the poems in Chinese and with an English Translation. There are also other sites with audio of the poems being read.

Practice eating with Chopsticks. We may also set up a Montessori style tray with a transferring activity using chopsticks. This would be a nice activity to have available for the entire week.

Go to the park and feed the ducks. Talk about ducks and other birds. Take pictures of the ducks or draw the ducks for nature journal.

Bake fortune cookies. Eat some and share the rest with friends.

Paint the sculpy bowl from day four and "lacquer" it with 1 part white glue and 2 parts water. (from Story of the World Activity Book).

I'll try to take some pictures.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

What started out with such promise at 5:30 am while I was planning, turned into murder and mayhem by 8:00 am. Okay, there was no murder but there was a great deal of whining and a raised voice or two. The plan for today was to read some of the kids favorite books, including Grandfather's Journey, which we are rowing this week. We were going to work on a mini book for our lapbook and then the plan was to start on another fun learning idea. Well, before I could even finish Grandfather's Journey, my youngest was whining. Did I mention PMS? Grrrrr. It was not pretty. One wanted to learn, the other didn't and wasn't afraid to try to blow it for the others. Okay - I give up!

Before I really *ahem* raised my voice, I decided to remove myself from the learning room. I retired to the kitchen to make a pan of brownies (which definitely solves every problem). Look what I returned to when I went to check on my little learners.


And we managed to salvage at least part of our learning (at least in my mind, this is considered learning ). Yes, those are brownies. They were delicious!