A Pair of Red Clogs {FI♥AR}

2/15 - 2/17 and 2/20 - 2/21

A Pair of Red Clogs is the story of Mako, a little Japanese girl, and what happened when she cracked her shiny, new pair of red clogs while playing the weather-telling game. She wanted a new pair so badly that she almost did a dishonest thing to get them.

Social Studies: Geography ~ Japan, Islands; Social Studies ~ Japanese Culture; Character Trait ~ Stewardship/Honesty

Clogs, post boxes, markets, low table with cushions, chopsticks, kimonos . . .




The illustrations in the book were all a wonderful picture of Japanese culture and we enjoyed talking about each one. 

We used the book Trip Around the World to learn "fascinating facts," a song in Japanese and other Japanese language activities. We learned please, thank you, mother, father, girl, boy, etc. I know these in sign language, so I signed the word as I spoke it, they repeated it, and then told me what the word was in English. 

We also found Japan on the map and colored the flag of Japan - "the land of the rising sun." The Japanese eat steamed rice daily, so for our FI♥AR Recipe we had steamed rice.

Bible: Honesty, Stewardship, Wisdom, and Giving a Soft Answer

Using the Five in a Row Christian Character and Bible Study Supplement we had a bible study on lying, repentance and forgiveness. We talked about that if we confess our sins that Father is faithful to forgive us. Mako's mother and father show a quiet wisdom in dealing with her, so we read verses pertaining to calming our soul and giving a soft answer.  And finally, we talked about being a good steward by taking care of the things we have.  

We also used the Honesty card from We Choose Virtues. . . "I am Honest. I am a truth teller. I am NOT. . . a liar, a thief, of a cheater and I don't change the truth to get my own way!"



The kid from Virtueville is Hockey Stick Nick, which was perfect because Malachi is playing floor hockey right now.

To practice this virtue, I told a story and embellished the details so the kids would know it was unbelievable. . . and asked the children if they thought my story was true. Then I told the true version of the story to see if they can separate real from pretend. . .an important skill! I told the kids that when we tell a story and want to change the truth, we need to start out by saying, "This is a pretend story."

Language Arts: Storytelling ~ Reminiscing, Past and Present Tense, Vocabulary

Mako is getting ready to send her granddaughter a pair of red clogs and is is telling the story of her own red clogs as she reminisces of her own story as a child. So, I covered past and present tense with Malachi. He had to tell me a story using both tenses - it was a little hard for him to stay consistent with tenses, but good practice.

Science: Weather Forecasting

Mako and her friends play a weather telling game, but it was only a game.  We talked about how we predict the weather and Malachi remembered from our unit on weather that we can guess the weather by looking at the sky and clouds.

Art: Pen and Ink, Cross Hatching for Texture, Colors and Shading, Sunset Colors

The above was all discussion from the manual and noticing the techniques in the illustrations.

Gyotaku - Fish Printing

My boys did this during a summer camp one year and it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the fish in the market:


Brook trout that the boys caught last summer. 

Eliana wasn't so sure about it - I'll let her facial expressions tell the story. . . 








I resized the prints for our album (see below).  And the fish went back into the freezer to use as fertilizer in the garden when the time comes.

Math: Counting by Twos and Fives and Playing "Market"

Each pair of clogs has two pegs attached to the bottom, so we counted the clogs in the illustrations by twos.

I made a set of food cards that we commonly buy and we played market with the cards by choosing items, paying with 5's (high fives), practicing counting by 5's, and then telling what we would make with the food items we chose. For example, I chose garlic, tomatoes, peppers, mozzarella and onions and said I was making pizza. Then I gave Malachi 5 high-fives and reinforced that 5 fives equals 25.



Shopping Bag ~ inspired by She Wears Flowers Kid's Shopping Book. {So super cute but I couldn't pull it off and still keep this row simple/easy!}


I made my own food cards of things we buy locally, printed them on iron on transfers, ironed them onto white fabric, and then sewed them onto 2 pieces of felt (sewing velcro on the bottom piece of felt.  If you do this, be sure to follow the instructions on the iron on transfers - mine said to reverse the print while printing and I didn't do this, so I was only able to make one sheet of them - hence the laminated version above!

Then we went shopping with the shopping bag to shop for Malachi's pizza dinner (he turned 7 this week).








We also did Lesson 6 in Speekee Spanish. We learned that "market" in Spanish is "el mercado." We also learned banana, onion, potato, tomato, eggs and more and made a Spanish omelet. (Review coming soon!)

FI♥AR Fun: Mock Sushi

I've never had real sushi, but we had fun making Mock Sushi for a fun treat.



Mock Sushi - rice-crispy treats with organic/vegan gummy fruit bears for the fish (in the baby section at Safeway) and Fruitabu Strawberry Rolls that I bought on Amazon for the seaweed.  They taste like fruity pebbles rice crispy treats. :) I also got the Japanese Bamboo chopsticks on Amazon.

Project FI♥AR:

Wherein our FIAR lapjournal meets Project Life . . .










On Eliana's Illustration I used a free label



We are not saying sayonara to Japan yet! Up next is Grandfather's Journey and during our row, we head back to the states.  Also coming up is our first week with Sonlight

A Pair of Red Clogs is a Five in a Row selection from Volume 1.

We rowed this between Week 7 and 8 in our life.

More delightful ideas for A Pair of Red Clogs:

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