Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?
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)!