"The Story About Ping"

"The Story About Ping" by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese is our book for the week.

For Social Studies on our first day, we spent time learning about China and the Yangtze River where this story is set.

Zoe made mini-books of China's flag and a map of China.

For Literature on our second day, we learned about fiction and non-fiction. Zoe made her own mini-book of fiction.

On our third day, we explored the illustrations of "The Story of Ping" and talked about viewpoint. We read a go-along book "Daniel's Duck" to not only discuss the artistic expression of viewpoint but the validity of differing viewpoints in other areas of life.

Zoe then drew a picture of a man and his plant from two different viewpoints: side and front.

On the next day, we enjoyed practicing counting skills while reading the story. Counting the ducks, boats, and members of the boy's family was a fun addition to the reading process for Zoe.

Then we learned about different types of birds with the help of the internet. Then we used our knowledge to play this board game I found via homeschoolshare.com. We played twice and then Zoe made sure that we plan to play again as a family tonight when Rod gets home.

For our last day of Ping, we did a science experiment to learn about buoyancy. First we gathered all of our items and Zoe made predictions as to whether the items would float or sink.

Then Zoe dropped each item into the bucket of water

and recorded what happened.

She enjoyed seeing how many she'd guessed correctly.

So many great memories with "The Story About Ping"! Zoe was dismayed again that we will be moving on to another book next week.