His Treasure Seekers

We had a pretty simple week with Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne.  The manual had lots of good ideas for discussions, so that was how we spent the bulk of our time.  Since we’ve been spending a lot of time preparing for the arrival of our little Arianna, it was a good time to talk about all the different ways to carry a baby.  We looked at pictures from when the boys were little of them in slings, wraps, backpacks, or just being carried in arms (we don’t use strollers much).  Ian also really liked the part of the book where the man dumped all his tools out.  He tried to name them all and we talked about how each one could be used.

We also did a couple activities from HomeschoolShare.  I got out the cards from the Animal Classification Cards Set II .  We never grouped them, but the boys had a lot of fun looking through them, naming the animals, and reading the facts about them.  Ian also loved making a game out of the Animal Homes Matching Cards from Kizclub, which we found through HSS.  (There’s also a game similar to this on the Peep and the Big Wide World website, so he was familiar with the whole concept and figured out the matches the first time without any help from me.)

Like I said, it was a pretty simple week, but the boys enjoyed the story.  I’m going to try to do a couple more Before Five in a Row stories before the baby comes, but if we don’t get to them, we’ll pick them up again in the new year.

This week we “rowed” Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? by Nancy White Carlstrom.  We enjoyed listening to the story in the car thanks to an audiobook leftover from Grandma’s years of teaching Kindergarten.  This is also where we got several other Jesse Bear books, though I know our library has several as well since we checked out a few last time we did this story.  I think the original is his favorite, but Ian also really liked Guess Who’s Coming, Jesse Bear; How Do You Say it Today, Jesse Bear?; and It’s About Time, Jesse Bear and Other Rhymes this time around.

We’re still enjoying playing the color bears matching game I introduced a few weeks ago when we started our month of bear books (see post on Corduroy).  Ian loves it, and he’s gotten really good.  He beats me every time (usually without me backing off at all)!  I also printed and laminated the “Rhyming Pairs” cards from HomeschoolShare.

  

No matter how many times I say the words out loud and give him examples of rhyming words he’s still not catching on.  So I want to keep doing activities like this with him to expose him to the concept, and I’ve no doubt that someday he’ll figure it out.

I thought about printing/coloring the cute bear paper dolls from Danielle’s Place (click on the link and scroll down to “Weather Bear Paper Doll Craft”), but then I realized I had some money in my homeschool budget.  So I splurged on this Wooden Bear Family Dress Up Puzzle from Melissa & Doug that I’ve been wanting to get ever since the last time we rowed Jesse Bear.  I’ll put it away except when we’re working on Jesse Bear or Goldilocks (coming up next!) so it stays special.  I never caught a picture of the boys playing with them, so this is just the shot from Amazon.  Ian especially liked them and actually played with them a lot.  It was also a good sorting exercise for him, putting all the pieces into the appropriate compartment for each bear (as well as finding the matching outfirst, which he cared about more than I would have thought).

We talked through several of the activities in the Before Five in a Row manual, and I had hoped to do the shapes painting described there, but it never happened.  Still, in spite of a busy social calendar this week I think we managed to do quite a lot at home (including our Bible lesson for the week on King David Bringing the Ark to Jerusalem).  And there’s always next time (of course I said that last time)!

Although it’s an old classic, I had never heard of Ask Mr. Bear until I discovered Before Five in a Row.  It’s a very appealing little story, with a pattern that’s easy for kids to follow and a sweet surprise at the end.  Both my boys wanted to read it over and over this week.

The Before Five in a Row manual has so many wonderful ideas for this book.  We spent lots of time discussing birthdays, and just making cornbread muffins (which Ian assumed were cupcakes!) was a celebration.  Both boys really loved it when I read the story using different voices for the animals and we practiced making their sounds.  The illustrations are great for introducing the idea of pastels (especially in contrast with the bright colors in Goodnight Moon).

I also chose two activities from Homeschoolshare.com.  The first one is actually based on an activity from the manual.  We used the HSS animal classification cards (which cover several B4FIAR books).  I had Ian help me divide the cards into two piles: birds and mammals.  The birds were easy, but he had a hard time grasping the concept of mammals.  “Here’s the cow.  What do you think it is, a bird or a mammal?”  “It’s a cow.”  Elijah spent lots of time studying the cards as well. (Somehow Ian managed to stay out of all these pictures!)

  

The other thing I did from HSS was the “product cards” from the lapbook, which we did after we read through the book a few times.  Ian got a few of them right on his own, and for the others we went back and reread the appropriate page from the book so he could get them all.  Elijah really liked looking at the cards and trying to name everything.

  

I’m so thankful to Before Five in a Row for introducing us to this fun story!

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!

  

Last week for Before Five in a Row I decided to do two beach stories, both of which were big hits with Ian.  Yellow Ball was one of his favorites last year when we read through all the books, but Jenny’s Surprise Summer was new to both of us and definitely lived up to the reputation of the B4FIAR stories.

Altough there are lapbooks for both Yellow Ball and Jenny’s Surprise Summer on HomeschoolShare.com, I didn’t see anything I’d want to laminate and reuse with the other kids, so I ended up skipping them altogether.  We did discuss most of the ideas in the book, and Ian was especially interested in then different kinds of shells in “Jenny.”  When I row that one with the younger kids I’ll have to break out our shell collection (currently in storage as we’re kind of in limbo with our housing situation).  I know Ian will like that, and I’m sure the others will too.

Thursday was a “field trip” day at the beach (the reason I chose these books this week).  Ian and Elijah both come alive in a new way at the beach.  I love the page in “Jenny” that reads, “Summer was the best time of all.  It was a time for bare feet and seashells and swimming with the gulls.”  Ian’s not much of a swimmer yet, but if you count splashing with glee at the water’s edge, that page describes him at the beach.  He’s just in heaven, and Elijah’s right there with him.

    

This week we “rowed” The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown.  It’s been a long time since we did anything from Before Five in a Row, and I’ve had most of our activities planned for weeks, so I was ready to jump back in.  Coincidentally, this also happened to be the book of the week in the ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 13 lesson plan we were using for our Bible story.  I pretty much stuck with the activities in the B4FIAR manual, as well as a couple things from HomeschoolShare.com.

After reading through the story once just to enjoy it, the next time I pointed out to Ian that some of the pictures were black-and-white and some were full color.  I didn’t mention the pattern, but I did ask him to predict what we’d see when we turned each page.  At first he was just guessing randomly, but then he started getting it right.  He never commented on the pattern, but I’m wondering if he’d caught on.

Ian’s had a little trouble grasping the whole concept of patterns.  On several occasions over the last year I’ve introduced simple ABAB patterns without any spark of understanding from him.  It’s been one of those frustrating things where I just can’t figure out why he doesn’t get it (as in I just want to say, “Come on!  Isn’t it obvious what comes next?”  Obviously I restrain myself.)  I didn’t want push him though, so I’d just drop it, knowing he’d catch on eventually after other gentle exposures.  So I was glad the one of the activities (the “rabbit sequence strips”) from the lapbook at HomeschoolShare touched on patterns.  (As I’ve shared before I’m not big on lapbooks, but I do like printing and laminating components that can be used as separate activities.  I keep everything filed away by book so I can pull them out again when I go through B4FIAR and other special books with my younger children.)

The sequencing activity was extremely simple, but maybe that’s why Ian was successful.  I liked the way it established the pattern, but I wish I’d printed out another copy to cut up so he could keep going.  (He asked me where the next one was.)

The other activity I used from HSS was the “rabbit perception puzzle.”  I actually thought this was going to be too challenging for Ian, but he surprised me by matching all the pictures (some of them were very similar and you had to look really carefully to notice the differences).  He was quite pleased with himself when he finished and wanted to do it again.

    

We also made bunny masks.  I’d seen it on several other B4FIAR blogs, and to be honest it always seemed kind of silly to me.  It certainly wasn’t on my plan for the week, but while working on our Bible notebook page for this week’s lesson, Ian took the piece of construction paper left from a cut-out and started pretending it was a mask.  So I grabbed a few paper plates and made bunny masks for both boys.

    

Elijah liked it until I tried to put a rubber band on his and then it just made him mad, even after I took it off.  Ian, however, wore his around for a while, put it on his stuffed bear, and dragged it around with him for the rest of the day.  Each to his own.

Finally, we played the Goodnight Moon game again, though this time we tried a harder level and matched the color cards to the black and white gameboards.

    

I tried this is Ian a few months back and he couldn’t do it, but this time he whipped through all four gameboards matching every picture without any help at all.  So fun to watch them grow!

A few weeks after we “rowed” this book, someone passed along a link to these great storytelling pieces.  I’m planning to print them out to use when we re-row this later down the road!

It’s been a few months now since we started doing the Bible lessons from the ABC Jesus Loves Me Three-Year Old curriculum.  Because I really want to focus on the Bible, I haven’t really put any effort into any other kind of lesson.  However, now that we’re pretty much in the swing of things, I’ve been wanting to start up again with Before Five in a Row.  I began introducing the books as soon as Ian turned two, and while he loved them, neither of us was ready to do any more than just read the stories.  All along I’ve planned on “re-rowing” each title, this time doing a few activities as we go.  I’ve been meaning to get started with that for the last few weeks, but for various reasons it just has not happened.  Until this week…

Months ago I had written out a calendar of what books I wanted to cover each month (not just B4FIAR but a few others as well, mostly those with activities I found at HomeschoolShare.com).  This week I had scheduled Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, and as it was also listed as the book of the week on the ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 11 lesson plan, I figured it was a great time to dive in.

We started (of course) by reading Goodnight Moon.  When we got to the part of GM that talks about the cow jumping over the moon, he reminded me of the nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle,” (which we talked about the last time we rowed this book) and I had to recite it several times.  We also read My World (a companion book by the same author and illustrator).  I’m not crazy about My World, but Ian really seems to enjoy it, especially the illustrations.

We played the easiest version of the Goodnight Moon game, finding the picture cards to match the pictures on each color game board.

Okay, so that’s Elijah playing with it, not Ian (he likes the pictures too!)  But Ian really enjoys this game, and even this easiest level makes him think.  Sometimes we play it together, but it’s also a great activity for him to keep himself entertained if I’m busy.

To do the “animal classification” activity described in the Before Five in a Row manual, I printed up the cards from HomeschoolShare, though I added rabbit, kitten, and giraffe to those they had in their set:

After all, the rabbit is pretty prominent in the story, and the kittens are mentioned more than once.  I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t have cards in the set but the elephant did.  (I had to go back to the book to figure out why the elephant was there, and then when I found it I wondered why they hadn’t included the giraffe as well, so I remedied that.)  Because it’s the first time we’ve done this activity, I kept the classification simple: big and small.  As we add cards with future books, we’ll see what other groupings we can come up with.  (I printed them on cardstock and laminated them, because we’ll probably use them quite a bit as we go through the rest of the books).

Since I had the laminator heated up (I LOVE that thing!), I thought I’d put it to good use.  Ian hasn’t been able to grasp the concept of rhymes yet, so I made these rhyme cards using pictures from Harper Collin’s Margaret Wise Brown activities and HomeschoolShare’s Goodnight Moon Lapbook components.

He enjoyed making matches with my help, but even after playing several times throughout the week, he just didn’t get it.  I had no idea this was such an advanced concept.  It seems so obvious, doesn’t it?  But it’s just not clicking.  Not that I’m worried–someday he’ll get it!

We talked a little bit about the phases of the moon. (We’ve observed the differences in the appearance of the moon with Ian a lot at night, but never really talked about why it changes.)  I liked the idea I found  here, but we didn’t just do it, just talked through it without using Oreo cookies.  That will have to wait until he’s old enough to really get it.  I really liked the instruction sheet though, and printed it out to refer to when the boys are older.

One last small thing we did was the counting activity from HarperCollins Margaret Wise Brown page.  I also thought about making cornmeal “mush,” but Ian’s such a picky eater these days, I doubted he would want to try it even if he helped make it.  (And since I’m still getting through morning sickness, I knew I wouldn’t want to finish what was left either.)