BFIAR: Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?

One of my favorite childhood books is Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? by Nancy White Carlstrom.  I can still hear my daddy reading it to me. It was truly a delight to share this with Joshua and we both had fun doing all of the activities!

We did not have any companion books, mainly because we just read about bears with Blueberries for Sal but also because I just couldn't squeeze it all in.

Our first activity was a bear hunt. Joshua wanted to do this over and over again!

I also bought the boys a matching bear card game. Maverick loved this the most, but Joshua still enjoyed it. I know we'll play this for many years!

We talked a lot about healthy vs. unhealthy food this week.  Joshua LOVES food (and that's an understatement) to the point where he eats so much it makes him sick.  I don't know what happened the first two years of his life to cause these issues, but he is getting better.   This was a great opportunity to discuss being grateful for what we have and trusting that mommy/daddy give him the right amount of food.

We made a Jesse Bear lunch! "Carrots and peas, and a little more please, celery crunch and sprouts in a bunch, an apple to bite and a mustache of white, juice from a pear and rice in my hair."  We had ants on a log instead of sprouts. And I had to add some protein.

a mustache of white

We learned how to measure in inches. This was Joshua's first time using a ruler!

We also worked on rhyming words and patterns. These are difficult, but I've seen so much improvement this year!

I think the most fun activity was designing our own kitchen floor to look like Jesse Bear's! We used circles, squares, triangles, and lines.  Joshua is so neat and has such joy on his face when we do things like this.  I'm working on not being so OCD and letting them just be kids... it's incredibly hard for me!!

Another one of the things we discussed was the American flag. It's shown a few times in the book so this was a wonderful introduction.  It was also perfect because the Olympics are coming up! We were able to talk about flags, what they mean, athletes from the all around the world competing, and so on. Joshua became so excited about this we decided to have an Olympics party!! (more on that later)

Another one of the many things I enjoy with homeschooling is knowing exactly what my kids are learning about.  I can see what excites them and feed them more information in that area, igniting the fuel for them to learn all they can! And I get to see it all through their eyes. There is nothing more precious!