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This sweet book was first published in the 1930s and is about a little boy named Danny who is searching for a gift for his mother's birthday. He asks various farm animals if they have something to offer as a gift for his mother's birthday and they each offer something (an egg from the chicken, milk for making cheese from the goat, wool for a blanket from the sheep). Danny thanks each animal for their offering but declines because his mother already has each of those items. The final inquiry ends up with a recommendation to go into the woods and ask Mr. Bear. Danny ventures alone into the woods, finds Mr. Bear and asks him if he could give something for his mother's birthday. Mr. Bear is the first animal that says he doesn't have anything to give but gives a suggestion for Danny to give his mother something he could have given all along: a BIG birthday Bear hug! :)
With the various printable online activities available as well as all the suggestions found in the BFIAR book, we just couldn't get through everything in one week, so we kept going into this next week. Here are some highlights:
Our letter for this unit is "G", highlighting the "goose", "goat", and "gift" from the story. In this picture, Collin is making another letter collage with bits of green paper and glitter.
We visited a brand new local bakery on our second morning where we shared a cinnamon roll and brought "school" with us! They really enjoyed using this little counting wheel found on Homeshool Creations. Using the little clothes pins also addressed fine motor skills.
We used some farm animal lace up cards to further work on fine motor skills.
This little printable from Homeschool Share was by far their favorite activity! They chose an animal and then lifted the flap to reveal what type of animal walk they should do: hop, skip, gallop or trot. They did each animal "walk" up and down our backyard once and as we went through the animals, I would test their memory by asking if they could tell me the items that each animal offered to Danny in the story.
This was such a good way to give them an enjoyable outlet for physical activity... so helpful to have them do something physical before expecting them to give their attention to "sit down" lessons.
One day, we visited a wildlife refuge that is located in one of our local MALLS of all places! I chose to take the kids there to be able to see a live bear and other "forest animals". This helped facilitate to a meaningful discussion about what types of animals live on farms vs. in the woods.
In this picture, Collin pretends that "Mr. Bear" is whispering a secret to him just like he did for Danny in the book!
We took advantage of some coloring pages provided by the wildlife program. Lucy colored a picture of a fox and Collin chose a cougar.
Lucy poses along with Mr. Bear and shows her fox picture.
Another morning, we colored these "Animal" and "Product" cards and made a little game out of matching the animals to the things they can provide. This was another free printable from Homeschool Share.
We finally ended our time with Ask Mr. Bear by taking a field trip to a wonderful apple orchard that also has lots of other attractions, including farm animals to interact with. It was fun to see more live animals that were in the book, like this sweet little goat! It provided more reinforcement in differentiating the farm animals from the forest animals.
We were able to share this field trip with some dear friends who also home-school. It was such fun to share this experience with friends. We have plans to get this group of kiddos together twice a month for meaningful play times. This field trip was something of a "kick-off" for our playgroup.
What a special time we enjoyed with this book! The story has become so dear to Lucy that during bedtime tonight, she created her own version of the story, inserting the names of her grandparents' dogs and cats as new characters in the story! I love to see that type of creativity blossoming alongside the formal lessons we've been engaging in... I think that learning and bonding with quality literature has a way of producing so much more in the way of learning than I would otherwise expect to see in my kids!
xoxo,
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