Brown Bear

After much research and thinking it through I finally decided what I want to to for Tot School with Ember. I am going to use the BFIAR books. Ember loves books so much and I love how many ideas are already out there for this curriculum. However, the official BFIAR books and curriculum are geared more for 2-4 year olds so I am finding other fun books and creating some activities to go along with them for the time being. We are starting with Brown Bear Brown Bear and are actually going to make it 9 different sections and focus on a color and an animal for each section. 

So, here is what we did for our first section: Brown & Bears

(My motto is to keep it fairly simple so that I will not be overwhelmed and stop doing it and so that it is enjoyable for Ember as well. I also do not plan on trying to cram things in but do activities 2-3 times each week. That is why I am calling things "sections" and not "weeks")

We started each day with reading "Brown Bear Brown Bear" (this is the basis of BFIAR - reading a book at least 5 times in a row)

We explored the color Brown with household objects

We watched some videos on YouTube about bears

We colored a picture of a bear with a brown crayon

We sorted gummy bears into an empty egg carton

We did a Bear Tracking activity where we tied one end of a string to a bear and hid it. Then we followed the string to find the bear.

We watched a movie with a brown bear in it: "Bear in the Big Blue House"

We glued pinto beans onto a bear template

We found and read a few other books from the library about bears such as "Corduroy," and "Paddington"

We had a bear head shaped snack

It was a very good first week of Tot School. I think that Ember and I truly both enjoyed it and she definitely knew what a "bear" was by the end of the week. I am not so sure about the color brown...but in time... all in time! :)  Looking forward to Red & Birds!