BFIAR Preschool – Post from the Past (October 2015):

We started rowing Ask Mr. Bear in the fall, so it paired perfectly with our fall and farm themed printable packs.  We even added birthday themed activities too!  This was the longest row so far, because there were so many lessons to glean, so many topics to cover.

The kids loved how Danny gave his Mommy the perfect gift, a hug.

After we were done reading the book, I showed them several different types of hugs (e.g. courtesy side hug, gentle hug, and an exaggerated bear hug). They loved this SO much, it was requested after each reading of the book.

Bible:

Since the storyline was about finding a gift for Danny’s mother, we chose to memorize 2 Corinthians 4:7, “God loves a cheerful giver.”

Click here to download the Bible Verse printable (poster, tracer, and cut apart puzzle).

We approached this book by topic, spent our time on various elements and characters of the storyline, and memorized the story sequence.

Birthdays

We got out some of our birthday learning toys and printables.

The kids completed several birthday themed worksheets and practiced writing down their birth dates.

We read Happy Birthday by Gail Gibbons.  I set out an invitation to “make a cupcake craft”.

The kids painted their cupcake with puffy cocoa paints and sprinkled them with beads and sequins.

They were a little messy when they dried, but they were super cute!

Practical Life – Gift Wrapping:

I usually line up several activities or trays in our Learning Lane (row of preschool activities set up for Parker), but today I decided to offer a practical life activity.

I laid out an invitation to “wrap a present”.  The tray included a pre-cut piece of paper, an empty box, and a roll of tape.  The

The kids LOVED this activity!

Parker worked on his vocabulary words with his Ask Mr. Bear preschool pack (Homeschool Creations).

The boys also worked on phonics, story sequencing, and prepositions.

Parker continued to work on letter recognition activities, spelling, and other reading readiness activities.  We rowed this book for several weeks, because there was so many different topics we could cover (i.e. hens, cows, geese, farms, birthdays, etc.).

The Little Red Hen:

We did a fun read and compare activity with Little Red Hen (First Reading Level 3)The Little Red Hen.

We read both the The Little Red Hen (Little Golden Book) and Usborne Little Red Hen (First Reading Level 3) versions of the story and talked about both the similarities and differences using a large venn diagram.

We made a Little Red Hen Craft too.  I cut out the shapes and they glued them to our construction paper along with a “How would you help the Little Red Hen?” writing prompt.

They turned out SO cute!

Parker worked on spelling ‘hen” and completing a letter H worksheet while the older kids added The Little Red Hen to their lapbooks.

Throughout this unit, Parker worked on various phonics, spelling, and letter activities.

He also worked on vocabulary, story sequence cards, and other activities from the Ask Mr. Bear Preschool Pack.

The older kids created a title cover page in their lapbooks.

Math

Parker’s Happy Birthday Bear, along with our Melissa & Doug Birthday Party Cake toy, appeared every day in our learning lane.

He loved putting a number in Bear’s hand, putting that number of candles on the cake, and turning on the Happy Birthday song.  So cute!

We did some pom-pom sorting for Mrs. Hen, separating the brown “eggs” from the white ones.

Sometimes we worked on our one-to-one ratio and fine motor skills by transferring orange, yellow, and green pom-poms into our pumpkin trays.

Since we had so many themes to work with, our learning lane had a plethora of math skill building activities.

Science:

This book gave us quite a few subjects to explore for science.

First, we updated our Habitat booklet with the animals we read about in the story.

You can purchase our My Go-Along-Animals Habitat Book here at our TPT Store.

You can download your FREE Ask Mr. Bear Go-Along_Animals here at our TPT Store.

Next, we explored living and nonliving things on a farm.  Afterwards, we explored some of the various animals in our story.

Living and Non-Living:

I found a great living and nonliving teaching idea from gift of curiosity.  I presented a basket with a bottle of water, a bottle of air, an apple, and a mommy & baby animal.  We talked about how every living thing needs water, air, food, and will reproduce.

I then handed out a living and non-living worksheet from the “On the Farm” pack.  The kids cut apart the pictures then glued them into the correct column.

Later that morning, we read On the Farm and Farming and we looked over the farm sequencing cards that came from the same printable pack.

Chickens:

We learned about chickens last year while we studied How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World.  Since the topic was recently covered, we quickly reviewed Mrs. Hen and company.

We read Chicks and Chickens by Gail Gibbons, the older kids added a little about chickens to their lapbooks, and

Parker worked on some chicken Montessori materials (Pinay Homeschooler).

Pumpkins:

Since it was a farm and fall theme, we did a pumpkin investigation lab.

I laid out an invitation to investigate sugar pumpkins.

Each child had a tray with a worksheet to record their pumpkin stats.

We read From Seed to Pumpkin and the older kids weighed, measured, and gutted their sugar pumpkins.

The kids harvested some of their seeds to use later in our pumpkin science craft.

While dissecting our pumpkins, we reviewed our parts of the pumpkin nomenclature cards.

This was a great way to look, touch, and feel our way through the various parts of the pumpkin.

Geese:

Since we were learning about pumpkins, we whipped up a batch of pumpkin spiced hootenanies, selected a few geese picture books from the library, and started our morning on a sweet note!

After reading Duck and Goose Find a pumpkin, we were inspired to add these adorable characters to our pumpkin science craft.

We brought out our dried pumpkin seeds, whipped up a batch of pumpkin-scented puffy paint, and adhered our seeds and string to a pumpkin shaped construction paper cut-out.

Once dry, we added a cut-out stem, a pipe cleaner vine, and Duck and Goose sitting on top.  They turned out really cute!

We had a special goose egg inspired breakfast paired with The Golden Goose.

Goats & Sheep:

We read several goat & sheep picture books and we reviewed the products that come from farm animals.

Parker sorted the animal family cards (Pinay Homeschooler), matched the animals in the story to what they offered to give.  And the older kids continued adding to their lapbooks.

We also read Llama Llama and the Bully Goat and Oh Look! while learning about goats.

Cows:

The last animal we studied was Mrs. Cow.  I created an Ask Mr. Bear playlist on youtube that we referred to throughout our time studying this book.

We watched an episode of Mr. Rogers visiting a dairy farm and a few other great cow/dairy clips.

We also read several dairy and cow picture books, including The Milk Makers by Gail Gibbons (non-fiction) and The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson (fiction).

Art & Craft Projects

I’m so happy we rowed this book for several weeks.  We had such a great time and created so many fun crafts & projects.  I had to post some of their artwork.

Little Farmer Art Project:

We read The%20Little Farm (Lois Lenski Books)The Little Farm and I gave the kids dot paint and farm-themed coloring sheets to paint.

The kids painted pumpkins, pigs, and their farmer bodies.  We set them aside to dry.

Once dry, we cut everything out and glued it to our page with a farm background.  They turned out ADORABLE!

On the Farm Fun:

We read some wonderful farm themed books.

We brought out our little farm set, a silver bucket, some yellow corn, and some farm cards.

The boys had fun playing with this on Learning Lane.

I hid the cards in the pail, Parker dug for them, and he matched each card with the item/toy in the farm play set.

Helpful Links:

Most of the printables, activities, and art projects were inspired by pins on our Ask Mr. Bear Pinterest Board:

For more educational fun, check out our Ask Mr. Bear playlist: