Summary
Una, Jiro and Spot visit a fancy festival that excites their senses - but not everyone has a good time. They learn an important lesson about friendship.
Number focus
Five
Before reading
What happened in the last chapter? Una, Jiro and Spot stopped to visit a fancy looking hotel. They met 4 beetles who had lost their instruments. Together they helped the beetles by making them new instruments and stayed to listen to them play.
Key themes
The 5 senses: Una and Jiro explore the exhibits of the festival using their 5 methods of perception to enjoy the offerings — sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Numerous pages feature the language of these senses and the sensory organs they use. Look for opportunities in the story to talk about each sense and relate back to experiences that students might have had at fairs or festivals they have been to.
Fingers and toes: Students at this age may be used to counting on their hands. The fact that each hand has 5 fingers is not only relatable for students but is suspected to be why we rely on the decimal system of counting. Hands feature throughout the story: Una counts down using her hands, Jiro holds 5 coins in his hand and the 2 mice share a celebratory ‘High Five’. To young students an open palm is both an interesting representation of 5 and a fast (and fun) way to sign the number.
A ‘star’ rating: The story is called ‘The five star festival’ with 5 stars sparkling on the banner. Star rating systems are used to rate lots of different things that the students might be familiar with such as the health of food, how fun a game is or the quality of movies or hotels. The more stars the better or more luxurious the offering. So this must be one fantastic festival! Discuss this with the students and see what they might give the festival out of 5 stars? Stars themselves are also interesting and appear throughout the story. They typically have 5 points and the ‘Southern Cross’ constellation is made up of 5 stars.
