His Treasure Seekers

This week for Before Five in a Row we kicked off a month of bear stories with Corduroy.  In preparing for the month I went a little crazy with my laminator, but it’s so nice having things ready in advance, and I think Ian (and maybe Elijah) will really enjoy some of the activities I have planned for the next few weeks.  Corduroy was one of Ian’s favorites last time through the B4FIAR books, and he was really excited when I pulled it out Monday morning.

The first thing we did was break out the button jar, just for exploring.  Both boys had fun with this and requested it several times throughout the week.

As usual, I checked out HomeschoolShare.com for ideas.  I skipped over most of the lapbook items, but I did like the button pattern strips.  (After our last experience with the patterns not going on long enough I printed out an extra copy and cut it up to have plenty of pieces to continue the pattern.)  Ian’s still not really catching on to patterns, but he enjoyed doing it with me so this was good practice for him.

The other thing I printed and laminated was this color bears matching game, which was one of the best activities we’ve done.  First I just introduced the cards to both boys.  I had Ian find the matches, and as we talked about the colors Elijah tried to copy us.  I’m not sure he really gets the concept yet, but he’s been enjoying learning the names of the colors, even if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  He just likes being a part of what we do.

After Ian was familiar with the cards, I took 5 pairs and turned them upside down so we could play “concentration.”  He caught on quickly and wanted to play again, so I added one more pair.  He was still having fun so we played one more time with all 9 pairs.  Not only was it great for his concentration skills (which he really surprised me with!), but after the game was over we each counted our matches and figured out who had “more” or “less” pairs, a concept I’ve been wanting to touch on but hadn’t gotten around to yet.  I’m glad both boys enjoyed the cards so much, because we’ll probably keep them out all month as we go through our bear books.

Just for fun, on Wednesday I took the boys to Sears for the sole purpose of riding the escalators.  They both got a big kick out if it, and Ian said, “It’s like a mountain!”  I knew he was thinking of Corduroy’s comment.

Ian really enjoyed watching the old live-action video of the story(check your library).

So our Bear Month seems to be off to a great start.  Ian even found an old teddy bear that he’s overlooked since getting it and decided he needed it in his bed.  I think we’re going to have a lot of fun over the next few weeks!