We started Five in a Row late last week. If you have been skimming through my blog, I am a fan of this curriculum. Mavi was around 3years old, we did Before Five in a Row (Caps for Sale, Goodnight Moon, Going on a Bear Hunt) and both of us enjoyed learning through literature. If you want to know more about Five in Row curriculum, visit their website here.
This 2015, I am including it once again in our homeschool. So last week, I came across Grandfather’s Journey in the library and I was a bit hesitant to start FIAR with this book (more of that in my book review). But because Mavi wants to read it, I gave in. It is the story about the author’s grandfather who moved to California from Japan. We read the story every single day before we would start our activities.
Note that I did not purchase Five in a Row manual. Because of my location, I have no access to it and can’t afford the shipping cost. So what I did here is create my own activities that’s in line with the book and borrowed other activities from FIAR Moms as well.
Family Relationships
Expose your child to your genealogy! We talked about how the author Allen Say loves his grandfather and how close they are as a family. So I told Mavi that we are going to trace his family(maternal side) starting from my grandparents. Here’s how we worked them out.
Mavi was enchanted by this activity. He enjoyed putting up together photos of his grandparents (and great grandparents!) and wished he knew his grandfathers even more.
Geography
The story’s settings are in Japan and United States. So we traced how the grandfather travelled to California from Japan via a steamship in the Pacific Ocean. I have to explain to Mavi that long time ago, there were no airlines yet, so travelling is quite difficult. 
Social Studies: Japanese Culture
We explored the Japanese culture using our Asia in a Nutshell fact cards. Then we made kimono paper crafts which we printed out from Crayola. We also tried origami (the art of folding paper in Japan). Mavi’s origami was a flapping bird (in yellow) and mine was a crane (in red), and it WAS NOT EASY!! The chopsticks in the picture was from Japan, given to me by my brother (who also travels a lot!).
Landmarks of United States
We have not been to the United States yet. So he was interested learning about the famous landmarks that was mentioned in the story. We traced the places the grandfather visited in the story. The book did not mention any places but he only describes them. And that’s what we did, we looked for those places in the web and identified each of them.
Math: Calendar
The grandfather travelled for 3 weeks to get to United States. As a review of his knowledge with the calendar, I asked him to arrange the months in a year. After which, we talked about the number of days in a month. We identified the months with 30 days, and those with 31 days. February is always a special month because it’s neither 30 or 31!
Math: Multiplication
Using the concept of multiplication (Montessori multiplication), we counted how many days did the grandfather travelled. In the story, it took him 3 weeks. So how many days are there in 3 weeks?
More of this Montessori Multiplication soon! You can get this Montessori Multiplication board from Amazon or from Tower High Learning (UK)
Science: Learning about Birds
Birds play a special role in the story. So we reviewed parts of the birds using Montessori concept. This Bird Puzzle can be purchased at Amazon or from Tower High Learning.
We also checked our bird figure collections. This set is from Safari Toob Exotic Birds. How I wish I have the Backyard Birds so we can explore birds that you can find in your yards or at home. The cards are from here.
You might also want to check our past activities on birds, Bird Unit.
History: World War II
I got Mavi some books about World Wars to give him a little bit of idea what it is all about. We would skip the rest of the topic and go straight to the war in Japan. Here I’m showing Mavi the effects of the nuclear bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan.
Here are the links for the books in case you are interested:
You can also get the books from Book Depository, Abe Books or Barnes and Noble.
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And that’s about it! Next on our list is The Glorious Flight and we’ll be exploring France, UK and airplanes!
