BFIAR - Ask Mr. Bear

Ask Mr. Bear, by Marjorie Flack is a super sweet story of a little boy who asked his farm animal friends what to give his mother or her birthday.  Since they could not tell her what to give her that she did not already have, he went into the woods and talked with Mr. Bear regarding a suitable gift.

Farm themed toys are a favorite in our home, so we had a blast with pretend play during the two weeks we spent on this book.  Our favorites were playing with the Little People farm set, the Melissa and Doug farm set, and a Farm Themed Read and Build.

We watched two you-tube videos to go along with our studies.  Our first was a clip of when Mr. Rogers (does anyone else remember him?) went to visit cows, and the other was of chicks hatching.

Other activities included matching the product with the "critter" it came from, such as eggs to the chicken, dividing animal pictures of what animals live on a farm and which ones do not, and playing with "muddy pigs."  For the Muddy Pigs, I mixed cornstarch with water and brown paint in an aluminum foil 13x9 pan and added some plastic pigs.  The kids had a BLAST!  We also used the Melissa and Doug stamps to stamp the correct number of animals requested. (For example if I wrote "5 horses," they stamped five horses.)

We also went on two field trips.  We visited a friend's goat farm.  She has goats, chickens, a calf, named Wellington, bee hives, and of course dogs and cats.  We all enjoyed playing with the animals and checking out her veggie garden and herbs.

Our second field trip was to Charlestowne Landing.  We did not explore the history portion of this phenomenal attraction, but rather stuck with the "zoo" portion.  Within that area are animals that are native to our region.