The Empty Pot--FIAR

 I've been planning to row through The Empty Pot by Demi and The Story of Ping during the month of February.  Both of these books are set in China and I knew that February is a great month to learn about it because of all the festivities surrounding Chinese New Year.  Christine's talked often of all  the fun they had...and I wanted to join in it too, so being the good friend I am, I invited myself (she gladly issued an invitation!) and we studied China, ate some Chinese take out (I made the fried rice, we order lo mein, and pot sucker dumplings), visited Christine's home for their Chinese adopted families new year party, attended Radford's cultural celebration night...ate some more yummy chinese food there...and of course we read the book and discussed many different concepts.....which are:

 Geography:   China of course.  We didn't get to the Story of Ping (I did read it with Liam and he love it, be we didn't do any rowwing activites.)   We label where everyone in our family lives...and with Grandma and Grandpa in Africa, it go special treatment too on the map.

English:   We discussed the plot dynamics of this book--the beginning  rising action, climax, denouement, and resolution.   There were many word she didn't know the meaning of to work with in this book. We found this fun flower/pot cut and paste activity to do.  She loved coloring all the flowers different colors.  Cailin helped quiz her on her new vocab words.

Math: we discussed the calendar--seasons, months, days hours, ect. of the year.

Science:  We studied seeds, parts of flowers and what it takes to make them grow.  Delaney wants to pick things up a bit in the writing department....do more "big girl" things.  She's been asking me to have write reports on subjects.  So I asked her to read a short paragraph from the Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia about seeds and then write about it., much like the KWO (key word outline) fashion from IEW.  I think she liked it.  She did a great job.  We also started our broccoli seeds for our garden....what timing!

Social Studies:  We read a book about China and she proceed to write all she remembered about it....4 whole pages worth!  I was amazed at how much she had done.  She really getting into writing.

We went to the two cultural events.  Here's her words about the shows at RU:

I liked the play of how the zodiac calendar came to be.  I liked the dancers, the ones with the fans.  I liked watching the karate people.  That was all, I didn't like the girls who danced to TV videos of immodest people.  I liked the sound of the music but not the immodest dress of the people on the screen.  I really liked listening to the drums...but Brianne didn't.  She got scared! 

Listening to the orchestra music was nice too.

I was amazed at how clingy Brianne was during this whole event.  Originally, I wasn't going to take her with us because I feared she would be off and running up and down the isles the entire night, quite contrary she wouldn't even turn around and watch the show, she hid her face in my chest the entire time.....except when she heard the clapping after the show, then she would turn around--clap--and then hid back in my chest.