For the past two week we have been working on "A Pair of Red Clogs" for our Five in a Row curriculum! It was a favorite for all of us! There were so many choices for activities to go along with this book! We tried to do as much as we could, but there were so many more things we probably could have done. We probably could have spent a month studying this book and all things Japan, if we had wanted to! For Mako, a little Japanese girl, the new shoes were clogs painted with red lacquer that shone beautifully. This is the story of what happened after she cracked the new clogs playing the weather-telling game and so longed for a bright, shiny new pair to replace them that she almost did a dishonest thing. *Taken from Goodreads.com Here is Jackson pretending to be a Japanese ninja in a "kimono" aka- a backwards mario bathrobe and flip flops. ; ) For one of our Language Arts activities we talked about "storytelling and reminiscing", so Jackson told me a story and acted it out using the Little People! Little People from left to right- Grammy, daddy, mama, Papa, Alexis, and Jackson. : ) Jackson and I also played a "clogs matching game", that I found on Homeschool Share. As a part of our discussion on Japanese culture, we read this cool book about Sushi! ...... and then made some "sushi" of our own! Then Jackson gave them a try! One of the things we discussed for art is a colored pencil technique called "cross-hatching"- coloring in different directions to make the picture look textured. Here is Jackson experimenting with some "cross-hatching". We also did some origami together! We made an origami pig! We also read this book during our study of Japanese culture, and learned about the "Cherry Blossom Festival"! Then we painted our own cherry trees! Lex painting on some pink blossoms using the bottom of a 2 liter bottle! Jackson painting the tree branches Jack painting some blossoms. And Jackson's finished Cherry tree! Lexie's almost finished tree! Found an idea for these "Japanese Carp Kites" on Pinterest! The kids really enjoyed making these! It was easy and fun! I cut out "fish scales" for the kiddos out of different colored sheets of tissue paper. Then they pasted them on in overlapping rows. Alexis with her finished "fish scales"! Then we turned the paper over and glued on different colored streamers. Then we pasted the two ends together, and we ended up with these!!! : ) I also added a string to they could hang them up, or try to "fly" them like a kite! We attempted to make a pair of our own red clogs out of foam and ribbon, so that Jackson could play the "weather telling game" like they did in the story. They ended up being too flimsy though, and fell apart almost immediately. I was at least able to get a quick pic of them before they were destroyed! ; ) Jackson also watched these DVD's during our study of Japan and "A Pair of Red Clogs". Reading Rainbow- The Bicycle Man Reading Rainbow- The Paper Crane The Little Travelers Japan