Five in a Row: A Pair of Red Clogs

Another post out of the archives, as I'm reorganizing!

This is another very sweet book about a young girl in Japan who gets a new pair of red clogs... then cracks them.  It deals with deceit, truthfulness, honor, stewardship, and family relationships as the little girl first tries to deceive her mother into getting her a new pair, and then realizes that isn't the right way.

Geography and culture: These activities were much the same as for Grandfather's Journey, so we repeated a lot of the information again.

We added a few more books to our study this week, since we had the extra time.  The library had great books about Japan for kids.

All About Japan for children was a very good introduction to Japan for young kids.  It included a lot of information about daily life in the city and in the countryside of Japan, narrated by children.  It briefly described the major holidays in Japan, and traditional games and foods.  We read a few pages of this book every day.  The traditional holidays gave us a lot to talk about.  We compared their beliefs with Christian beliefs. I.e. They worship their dead ancestors; we worship a living Creator God.  They have many creation stories, involving many gods and lesser deities, often in conflict; we believe in One God who created everything from nothing and still rules it today.  D pulled this book out first thing every morning, ready to dive in.

Manjiro is an amazing true story I had never heard before!  We read it two days in a row, even though it was long.  I think we'll read it again before we take it back to the library.  It is the true story of a shipwrecked Japanese boy who makes his way to America on a whaling ship, never knowing if he will make his way home to see his family again.  He learns the English language, works his way through school, gets a higher education in navigation, and earns enough to buy his own ship, with the goal of returning to his homeland.  It takes place in the early 1800's, when Japan was still closed to the outside world, and even Japanese citizens who left the border were not allowed to return, on penalty of death.  Read the story to see what happens!

Thanks to the maps in this books, we were able to trace all of Manjiro sea journeys.  We talked about how Americans still mostly lived on the east coast at that time, so when sailing, boats would travel all the way around Cape Horn to get to Asia. We learned the names of the different oceans.    We also talked about the building of the Panama Canal to make ocean travel quicker.

The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks is a Japanese folktale about compassion and love.  I enjoyed the the story (especially as an animal lover), but the mystical elements left D very confused, so I had to explain it to him.  He was still confused.  We don't read very many fairy tales or fables, but think we need to start incorporating them more so he can learn to separate the mystical from what is real, and learn that even "not true" stories can teach us important lessons.

We cooked a few more Japanese meals and made rice balls in seaweed wraps based on a recipe we found in the children's book on Japan.  This was a big hit, because making them was very sensory - i.e. sticky!  And they were delicious.

Math:  We did math with our book this week!  The story begins with a trip to a market for the little girl to buy a new pair of clogs.  The first few illustrations are of the market street and inside one of the shops.  We used the street scene as our backdrop.

We played shop with props that matched the goods for sale in the book: flowers, fish, apples, and "clogs."  I found the red flip flops at the Dollar Tree and D was so excited! I kept them a surprise until I had the store laid out.  He asked me to make a store sign with Japanese characters on it to put on the top of our market scene.  We got out our jar of spare coins.  He paid for the items and told me what change he should receive.  This is one of D's favorite activities, so we did it for a long time.  We left it set up for most of the day so that during his quiet time he could continue to play.

Social studies:  Our social study this week was mostly on character.  We talked about lying, deceiving, honoring parents, stewardship.  The little girl wanted to new pair of clogs enough to purposefully get her cracked pair very muddy, hoping her mother would then buy her new ones.

We talked about how her actions we deceitful, even though her words were not direct lies.  She was trying to trick her mother.  We found some verses in the Bible about deceit.

Instead of buying her new clogs, her mother tells her to wash them, reminding her that you "always try to clean a thing before you buy a new one."  We talked about how this attitude and course of action is called stewardship.  We ought to take good care of our things so they last and work for a long time.  We had many opportunities throughout the week to learn practical ways to steward our belongings.  For instance the boys began playing a game involving pushing their bikes down a hill so they crashed into each other.  I asked Daniel if that game was exercising good stewardship of his bike; was it helping his bike last and work for a long time?  He realized it was not good stewardship to crash his bike on purpose, and stopped.

We discussed honoring your parents.  It doesn't only mean obeying commands, but also stewarding things your parents give you, like caring for your clothing so it lasts and cleaning up your toys so the house stays tidy and they don't get broken or hurt anyone.  Honoring also means not deceiving or lying to your parents, but telling the truth and acting truthfully, without trying to trick them to get your way.  I asked D if he ever tries to trick me in order to get his way, and he admitted that he has and gave me some examples.  We talked about how God tells us to be truthful and prayed together.

Art:  We made decorative carp, like the Japanese hang in front of their homes to celebrate "Children's Day."  The carp symbolize strength and courage, things the Japanese pray for their children to acquire as they grow up.