Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Story About Ping

For the last two weeks or so we've been studying The Story About Ping. I-6 has had a really great time and today we will finish it up. We have a couple more facts about ducks and some pictures of different types of ducks to put in his notebook, but he has already begun some of the activities for his next book. I may add that last page for you here, but let's not get too anxious about it!

Once again- what is the deal with Blogger turning my pictures around?? This is page number one in the notebook.

One can never have too many maps of China in a notebook. I just had him do one more yesterday to pick China out from a map of Asia. I'm happy to report he did it!

He did a colored pencil drawing of Ping in the water- can you see how those lines make the duck "move"? He also did some copywork from Draw Write Now. You can check out HSS for a chart on what DWN lessons match FIAR stories for each volume. The other page shows a reflection of the sun in the water. We talked about how light will bounce back from smooth surfaces like mirrors and water. When I mentioned reflection he immediately told me about Paul Revere's Ride which we did a year ago.

We studied buoyancy and talked about density. These are the objects we tested.

The test- J3 asks for sink or float everyday now! R8 had to test her paper boats.

The data chart with pictures is from HSS. I made my own the first time a few years ago (and still have it carefully organized in my computer files- it's there in the middle) and aside from the pictures I prefer it because it has a column for a hypothesis. Every good scientist should have a prediction before they begin testing their theories.
Homeschool Share has many more items for a Ping notebook. I have a few more to try out for types of ducks and Ping's family. We thoroughly enjoyed this story and I must mention also that we had some Chinese take out the first weekend in honor of Ping and well kitchen wall papering!

8 comments:

Debbie said...

Love the notebook!

Essy said...

Hi Heather,
I'm new to reading your blog so I don't know if you've covered it before...but where do you get those notebooks? I love it!

Heather said...

I got those notebooks from Walmart in their craft section. They are spiral scrapbooks for about $8.

Next time I'm going for the Bare books which have been mentioned on the FIAR boards.

Welcome to the blog Essy! Thanks for reading. : )

Heather

Lynn Hasty said...

Heather, I love what you do! I'm always inspired by you. Also, your blog looks great. Keep on blogging!

By the way, we are currently reading The Meanest Doll In The World too. Talk about doll adventures! :)

Lynn

Dana Leeds said...

I'm new to your blog, too. I think I got a link from "That Artist Woman." I was going to ask about the notebooks, too. I love them!Thanks for answering already, though.

We loved Doll People but haven't read the "Meanest" book yet. We'll have to do that soon!

Tyler said...

Makes me want to row Ping again! I think you are the one that got me hooked on those walmart spirals. Love them cause the pages are so nice and thick. I must have missed the bare book post...

deleise said...

Sorry, Tyler was me. He just started a blog and now I keep forgetting to check the identity when I comment.

Heather said...

Here's the bare books link.

http://www.barebooks.com/

You can find some taller spirals there. However, there are a lot more pages in the one pictured here. Still I'd love a taller book so there isn't so much folding.

I bet Tyler's blog rocks.

Heather