READY TO ROW:

Story Disk:

Parker colored the story disk and placed it on Japan.

BIBLE:

Memory Verse:

My daughter created the artwork for Grass Sandals. I used it to create a Bible verse printable.

You can purchase your copy here at our TPT Store. There’s a bonus FREEbie tracer in the preview.

Bible Lessons:

There were many great Bible and character lessons we read. We learned about being content, we read about Paul’s missionary journeys, and the books of poetry in the Bible.

We also looked up many verses about the moon and mountains, we talked about Jesus passing through fishing villages like Basho, and discussed qso much more.

Friendship:

Parker looked up all the verses on friendship and finished by reading the story of David and Jonathan. I also contrasted their wonderful friendship with the story of Job’s not-so-pleasant friends.

Then we read Sakura’s Cherry Blossoms, a sweet, sad and touching story about friendship.

In addition to the FIAR Bible and Character lessons, I brought out I Heard Good News Today. There were many missionary stories from Japan. I wove them into our Bible time.

SOCIAL STUDIES:

Japan:

Parker found and identified Japan on our globe.

We started reading about Japan in our Journey to the Eastern Hemisphere book. This was an in-depth study of the history, economy, religious beliefs, culture, climate, and wildlife of Japan. This book is geared for older students; however, I really enjoyed All About Japan.

This book is filled with much of the same information, but in a more attractive format for students of all ages. I highly recommend this book and others in the series.

Landforms:

I created a landform page in his notebook. Parker looked for all the water and land formations mentioned in the story, labeled them and sketched a picture.

Culture of Japan:

In addition to All About Japan, we read several books about Japanese culture. Almost all of them covered a particular festival celebrated in Japan.

Cuisine:

Ramen:

We learned that ramen originated from China, but it was perfected and made popular in Japan.

We read Magic Ramen and learned about the story behind Ando Momofuku’s instant ramen.

We also watched a few clips from our Grass Sandals playlist.

Parks helped me cook a big pot of home-made ramen. It was delicious! It was even better the next day!

We read The Discovery of Ramen on our Epic app. It was another great book in the Asian Hall of Fame series.

Calligraphy:

I bought a new calligraphy set for the boys to use. Jordan took a stab at it first.

Kanji:

I sketched small boxes for Parker to paint the various kanji characters in the story.

Parker read through the story painting and labeling each kanji character. I left a space open for him to record and illustrate two kanji characters.

His Japanese art project turned out beautifully.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Story Review:

I created a Grass Sandals Story Review.

You can purchase your copy here at our TPT Store.

Vocabulary:

Parker and I reviewed the vocabulary words together.

Biography:

I chose a Robert Quackenbush biography to cover this topic. First we talked about biographies then we sat on the couch and read this book together.

This was reasly a fun read-aloud. It was fun, quirky and very enjoyable.

Haiku:

Parker and I read One Leaf Rides the Wind. This was the perfect book to cover haikus during the fall season.

I collected several different leaves outside. Parker laid them out and began to make leaf rubbings. Next, he wrote his haiku in the center.

Next, Parker used our crayon pastels to color the koi and add some color to the leave markings.

Lastly, Parker used his watercolors to paint the leaves then the pond.

He did such a great job! It looked beautiful. It was the perfect autumn art project.

Reading:

We read The Master Puppeteer together. Both boys enjoyed it thoroughly.

I love checking out stacks of books and leaving them in a stack. I enjoy grabbing one whenever we have a readable moment.

MATH:

Century:

I created a “Turn of the Century” worksheet while rowing The Finest Horse in Town. I added it to the Grass Sandals Story Review.

Parker read through the worksheet and completed the problems.

SCIENCE:

Astronomy:

We recently studied space, especially the moon, while rowing A Kite For Moon. I simply added a few elements here and there, but we didn’t explore anything deeply.

I brought out our Space Encyclopedia so we could have a visual representation as we talked about the solar system.

The Milky Way:

Moons on Other Planets:

Moon:

Since we recently studied the moon, we covered this topic by reading moon-themed books.

As we read Kittens First Full Moon, we saw a perfect example of seeing the moons reflection on the water.

Geology:

Hot Springs, Cold Streams & the Sea:

There are so many wonderful ideas that come to mind as we explore each topic. It’s hard to shelf any great activity, but there just isn’t enough time for everything!

We read through the lesson and discussed how hot springs are heated by pockets of magma as we looked at pictures of the rock cycle and layers of the earth.

I remember when Parker built built a 3D model of the Earth using the layers of the earth cards (The Helpful Garden). We looked through our old pictures together.

Mountains:

Since we were discussing both layers of the earth and mountains, we color-coded the parts of a volcano (The Helpful Garden).

Afterwards, we color-coded the parts of a mountain (Montessori Print Shop).

Weather:

Parker and I read Down Comes the Rain together. We talked about the smell of rain.

The very next day, it rained good and hard. I LOVE the rain. We opened the door, listened and smelled.

Botany:

Flowers:

We started our botany unit with a walk in the garden.

We tried to find all the plants mentioned in the story. We found a cucumber, apple trees, morning glories, a hibiscus bud, iris foliage, and Japanese maples (my personal favorite though not mentioned).

For this topic, I chose to dissect some of the flowers we read about in the story. In addition to hibiscus and morning glories, we dissected a pumpkin blossom.

Bananas:

First, we read See it Grow Bananas on our Epic app.

We used our Lifecycle of a Banana cards (Montessori Print Shop) to color-code our banana tree worksheet.

We used our Parts of the Banana cards (Montessori Print Shop) to help us identify and color each part of the banana fruit. Afterwards, we mashed up our bananas to make banana bread.

Parker helped scoop, measure and mix our banana bread.

The banana bread was delicious! What a fun and tasty way to learn about this popular fruit.

Bamboo:

We had just studied bamboo while rowing Paper Lanterns.

As we walked around the garden, we found an old trellis made of bamboo. It was cool to see it up close. I think Parker might be planning a bamboo project soon.

Chemistry:

Oxidation:

I cut apart some banana slices and squeezed lemon juice over half of them (on the right). We talked about oxidation together.

We left them out for several hours. When we came back, we noticed the bananas on the left were browner than the ones with lemon juice.

Zoology:

Cranes:

We read about cranes in our Usborne Book of Knowledge.

We read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes for Parker’s Eastern Hemisphere studies.

We brought out our oragami kit and folded several frogs and other things.

Afterward, we read Lotus and Feather. This was a beautiful story and a precious ending to our unit on cranes.

Frogs:

We read Frogs by Gail Gibbons.

I tied in our Bible lesson as we read about the plague of frogs in Egypt.

I brought out Parts of the Frog cards (The Helpful Garden) and our Frog Montessori puzzle. I had Parker label the frog puzzle.

Afterwards, he color coded the parts of a frog in his FIAR notebook.

Next, we used our frog figure and lifecycle cards to review the stages in a frog metamorphosis.

Afterwards, Parker completed The Life Cycle of the Frog worksheet from the Story Review.

Crickets:

I read World of Insects Crickets with Parker.

He color-coded the parts of the cricket as we read about them. We used a picture on the internet for the other body parts.

ARTS, CRAFTS & MORE:

Basho’s Hat:

We covered the details in writing during this art project. First, we talked about Basho’s promise and flipped through to see it fulfilled. Next, we talked about writers tying off loose ends, so to speak.

In order to get an 18 inch diameter, I had to glue to pieces of heavy construction paper together. once dry, Parker painted it yellow. We set it aside to dry.

I marked and measured the underside to ensure I cut it out correctly. Then I followed the instructions in the manual. It turned out great! Parks was pretty happy with it.

Ink Stone & Brush:

I brought out our China Kit, with the ink stone and Asian brushes.

He used it to paint kanji characters on his yellow hat.

Sewing:

Japanese Cheesecake:

Parker is a cheese mongrel, but the boy doesn’t like cheesecake. I don’t understand it. I saw a video of this jiggly Japanese Fluffy Cheesecake. It looked AMAZING! I knew we HAD to make it. With a bit of convincing and a promise to make blueberry sauce to accompany it, we headed to the kitchen.

We started separating the eggs and making the custard-like batter.

Next, we whipped our egg whites until they formed stiff peaks.

We slowly folded batches of egg whites into the batter and poured it into our pan, lined with parchment paper.

It only rose a little, so I turned up the heat 10 degrees as the recipe suggested. It didn’t rise nearly as much, but I read about it later. Our first mistake was using a nine inch pan instead of an eight inch pan. Our second mistake was building our parchment wall too high.

Despite the low rise, it was CRAZY delicious! It was worth all the work!

As promised we whipped up a batch of blueberry sauce with blueberries, sugar, lemon and a slurry of cornstarch and water.

Of course, Parks tasted it and gave it his stamp of approval.

We set it out to enjoy after dinner. It was delightful!

HELPFUL LINKS:

Pinterest Board:

You can find most of the activities, ideas, and printables from this post on our Grass Sandals Pinterest Board.

Youtube Playlist:

As with our other rows, we created Grass Sandals playlist with read-alouds, music, science, and other clips.