This was our first week back to our "Five in a Row" (FIAR) lessons. Particularly, we have moved out of "Before Five in a Row", to "Five in a Row Vol. 1".

"The Story About Ping" has always been a favorite. I remember "ROWing" it with the son. It was fun this time around, to add the hymn from this list and the Bible Character lessons from the supplemental book.

Highlights included:
Learning about bouyancy--which she understood more than I expected for a four year old.
Making playdough "Ping"s.
Learning that "Yangtze" means "yellow".
Learning about obedience and consequences.
Singing "Trust and Obey".
Coloring a map & flag of China.
Learning about customs of China.
Learning about ducks.
Learning about repetition as a story element.

I know there is so much more you can do with this book; as well as all FIAR selections. I learned the first time around, with my son, that you can literally "make a day of it". We don't have that kind of time, so I'm picking and choosing based on over-all value, and even ease. I love this series and think just doing nothing but reading the book five days in a row and talking about it, has a lot of value! My goal is to have something to notebook, which we did by putting together a lap-page (lapbook without the file folder) for her notebook. (We use a notebook method).

Daughter's favorite parts were the reading (always!), singing the hymn, and working with the playdough. I'm seeing that if she has an actual "task" or "goal" to perform with the playdough, she likes it better than free-for-all playdough time. She's already asking me what the next book will be, and doesn't want to "end" our Ping story!