Xapa to the World

Tag: Marco Polo

  • FIAR Vol. 1 – Papa Piccolo

    FIAR Vol. 1 – Papa Piccolo

    I really thought my daughter would be captivated by this book – she LOVES cats and longs to have one badly! Alas, I am allergic, but it’s a good exercise in patience, of which she is sorely in need. She is already planning out how many and what color, etc, she will have when she grows up.

    No, it was my son who was most interested in this story. I will say, the book itself is hard to find. I love it and I hope that FIAR can find a way to keep it in the curriculum, but sometimes they revise the volumes based on availability. This one, then, may be relegated to the older editions. That said, you can find it being read aloud on YouTube and I believe it is available in digital form. I personally love holding the books and we were able to find a reasonably-priced copy to have in our records. Honestly, we have the hard-copy of just about all of these books as they were just so sweet and bring back memories, even after a few years.

    Social Studies

    When you can’t get to Venice in person, the next best thing is to travel with a book! The pictures and iconic sites encouraged us to chase lots of rabbits in learning more about Italy and this beautiful city as a whole. The Disney movie, Luca, was also fun to watch along with this study. If the kids were older, I would consider watching The Italian Job as there’s an excellent chase scene through Venice. This is also an excellent time to play the tag game “Marco Polo” where the seeker is blindfolded and calls out “Marco” while the others respond with “Polo!”

    Art

    This book has come up a lot in this series of posts – it’s just so good! When studying Papa Piccolo, we discussed complementary colors and also how you can use color to depict changes in light in artwork.

    Science

    Our bodies are so interesting and the best thing is, especially with our senses, we can test and learn very easily. So, this week, we learned about peripheral vision and practiced seeing things in our periphery. I wasn’t sure how it would work for my son, as he has no (or very minimal) depth perception, but the two types of vision are not necessarily related.

    This little pocket book of cats was so much fun to see all the different types of cats found out there!

    Other books

    Cats are a source of endless amusement – just look at the popularity of Cat Videos online. So, it’s no surprise there are plenty of picture books about cats and their antics. Here are just a few that we found and read along with our main book.

    I also found this poem about how cats sleep. I’m more of a dog person myself, and I think dogs run a close second on being able to sleep anywhere and with anything going on around them.

    Poem: Cats by Eleanor Farjeon

    Cats sleep
    Anywhere,
    Any table,
    Any chair,
    Top of piano,
    Window ledge,
    In the middle,
    On the edge,
    Open drawer,
    Empty shoe,
    Anybody’s
    Lap will do,
    Fitted in a
    Cardboard box,
    In the cupboard
    With your frocks –
    Anywhere!
    They don’t care!
    Cats sleep
    Anywhere.

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    Complete Booklist:

    Find the full list on or .