The Story About Ping - Science

This is my second post about our Five In A Row (FIAR) studies relating to The Story About Ping.  You can read the first post (which includes an explanation of the FIAR program) here.

I was inspired by a blog entry I'd seen to do an experiment with the kids about why ducks don't get wet.  After our reading of the story, I started by asking the children if they'd noticed that Ping never looked soggy in our story.

As I spoke, I started gathering my materials (because, of course, I did not have them prepared the night before).  We contrasted Ping, who stayed dry-looking after coming out of the water, to the boy in the story, who'd fallen into the water and was dripping wet.

Still searching for what I needed to run our little experiment, I explained that a duck's body has a special oil, and that the grooming ducks do, called "preening", spreads the oil all throughout the feathers.  This oil helps to keep them dry.

("Look!  I'll show you" cried the enthusiastic Mother, as she continued to rummage through the cupboards. Popping up some moments later with a handful of brown paper bags and a spray bottle, she exclaimed, "Isn't God so creative and awesome?! .)

I then gave each kiddo two brown paper lunch sacks (NO, not the $290 ones!) and told them that these would be our "ducks".

("Oh! These must be the ducks' feet!" Exclaimed an enthusiastic student, and suddenly,  three pairs of brown paper "duck feet" began dancing all over the  counter.)

Dancing duck feet

I broke up the dancing by introducing crayons and instructing that each child select a bag to be "the duck".  The selected bags were then given duck-y faces.

Three interpretations of a duck's face

Next it was time to cover our "ducks" with oil.  I gave them a paper towel dipped in olive oil and told them to start "preening".

"Preening"

 After the ducks were finished preening, we "made it rain" on the ducks and also onto the "control" paper bag.  The children enjoyed watching the water pool and bubble on the surface of the "duck".   The control, meanwhile, simply got wet.

Made this picture extra large so that you could see the "pools" of water on the oiled "duck"

Next, I had J-Bird round up three empty soda bottles while I filled our fancy-tea-party pitcher (kettle?) with water.  I then let each child pour water into a bottle until it was about half-full, then I added each kiddo's choice of food coloring to the water.

The caps were (tightly!) screwed on, and then my seemingly innocent instructions of "Shake it up until it is all mixed in," were gleefully obeyed.

Next, I put some olive oil into each bottle of colored water and replaced the caps.

I thought the olive oil was ugly, but I kept that thought to myself. 

Once again, the children were instructed to "shake it up until it is all mixed in".  The kids shook and shook their bottles.  They would stop occasionally, watch the oil re-surface, and then shake again.

("It's getting closer!" Exclaimed the enthusiastic J-Bird.  She stopped shaking for a moment, then watched as the olive oil once again rose to the top.  With a sigh, she shook again, this time with more vigor and determination than ever before.) 

Z-Man is shaking it up! 

 Finally, I felt it was appropriate (and probably legally required) that I let them in on the secret: 

("You can stop shaking, now," Mother confessed,  "You will never get them to combine!  Oil and water don't mix!")

I did not have my camera at the ready, because nothing says "I'm about to trick you terribly" like a camera in your face.  

 I had to have the kids re-inact their indignation at my evil withholding of information:

 

 

The Story About Ping - Geography and Dioramas

Thanks to getting a great deal on the first Volume in the series, I am trying the "Five In A Row" (FIAR) curriculum supplement with my kids this year.  The concept of FIAR is pretty neat; basically, you read the same story together five days in a row, and each day you do an activity or project that goes along with a theme from the story.   You would (presumably) cover a minimum of five areas of study throughout the week, all with a unifying theme to make the process memorable and cohesive.

Today was our second day with "The Story About Ping", a tale of the adventures of a yellow ducking who lives in China.

The Story About Ping - Our first Five In A Row book

Today I decided to enhance my read-aloud of the book with some traditional Chinese music.  I selected "River Water", since the title seemed apropos. I allowed it to play softly in the background as I read, and I think it really added to the tone of the story.

Then it was time for the lesson.  One of the great things about FIAR is that you can switch things up; you don't necessarily have to do science every Monday or art every Thursday.  Because I had it ready to go, I decided to cover geography today.

We all found China on the map together, and then my third-grader got a worksheet about China's geography to complete.  The first-grader got a lesson in "North, South, East and West", where the sun rises and sets, and how to locate the compass on a map.  Meanwhile, the preschooler got his hands on some kid scissors and cut himself a "boat" out of a piece of handwriting paper.

This boat originally went the other way. But Junior did not want to show that side, as his sister has written his name on it with pink crayon.  The horror.

This got me thinking about a website I'd stumbled upon while looking up ideas for this Ping unit, where the "Suggested Student Assessment" was to make a diorama of a scene from the book.  I showed my oldest how to make the diorama and explained to her how to make creatures with tabs on the bottom so that they'd "Stand up" inside the scene.

She was immediately excited and enthusiastic.  However, she was NOT excited and enthusiastic to create a diorama of the Yangtze river and Ping the duck.  No, she was excited to create a "savannah" scene.  Being the cool teacher that I am, I decided that since she'd completed her China worksheet, she could make her diorama however she wanted.  Here it is:

Lion, bird, gazelle, and meerkat.  Cute, eh?

Meanwhile, Junior was pressing me to cut out some shapes for his diorama:

According to the Artist: "It's a dinosaur walking around in the ocean. With a dog.  And a triangle."

Sadly, I have no pictures of Little Sister's diorama, which was made up as a dog pound or pet shop, or something.  She was using hers as more of a play-set, though, moving the pieces around instead of gluing them down..  I think she was the least impacted by this craft; much to the delight of her brother, she spent most of the time asking me why we were spending so much time making "diarrheas".

My oldest was very much "in" to this project.  She proceeded to make another couple of dioramas, one of "a library" (not pictured) and this one of "under the sea":

A mermaid and two dolphins

Between cutting shapes out for the kids, I managed to eek out a bit of artistic expression.  If I am honest, I must confess that I just HAD to make one;  it was driving me mildly bonkers that NOT ONE of my kids was paying homage to the original story during this craft session.  So, here ya go:

Interpretation of "fishing birds" scene

My son brought the Ping book to me tonight and asked me to read it.  I'm glad he didn't protest about having to wait until tomorrow to read it again.  That is the one thing I wonder if I will like about this program; I know kids like to hear a story again and again, but I am not sure I can say I enjoy reading anything 'Five in a Row" times.  But, it is keeping them engaged and we are having fun, so we're going to keep it up.  For now.