The Bough Family Homeschool: We're Going on A Bear Hunt

We had a GREAT time this week with We're going on a Bear Hunt. Our biggest project was preparing for our big HUNT. I started the week with reading all of our books. In addition to Bear Hunt, our book selections included Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See (motions), Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear (sounds), Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See, Snow Bears by Waddel Martin, and A Bear Went Over the Mountain by Rosemary Wells. We then began to prepare our Bear Hunt Guide that I compiled from Microsoft clip art. Stephen has been doing a much better job with cutting since I have encouraged him to do a little every day up until this point. He actually did this entire project in one sitting while Rhea was taking a nap/playing in her room one afternoon. Unfortunately, I had meant for him to color it too, and I think I pushed my luck on his attention span since it went into the lap book uncolored. The big event occurred after nap time on Sunday. We looked through our Bear Hunt Guide to see what we needed, put everything in their backpacks followed by putting on their appropriate hats. Each child was greeted by bear feet outside their doors leading them downstairs. By the time they made it into the living room, the foot prints stopped. We said "Oh no, where did the bear go? I guess we need to go on a bear hunt!" I hope everyone can see the video since we had a GREAT time.

I do want to address the other books we used since they were so interactive and probably their favorites so far. We started Angus Lost this week and the kids demanded Bear Hunt books again. Anyway, I thought the accompanying books by this author would be too redundant, but the kids really enjoyed the simplicity. The Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See focused on animal motions that we acted out, while Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear used animal sounds. I will include a video that Stephen made for Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You Hear using animal card while telling his version of the story. Stephen and Rhea both enjoyed The Bear Went Over the Mountain and could sing the song by the end of the week, while Snow Bears was a wonderful book that calmed everyone down; I know, not a common trait of a Bough. It was a great story about how three baby bears went out to play with their Mommy and then came in when they got cold to eat toast by the fire. This book was typically then followed for a demand for another bear hunt, or the more attractive alternative of screaming while running around the kitchen island in the dark with our flashlights.

Stephen worked on a bear "research" project all week. He was required to pick a bear each day and we talked about its color, size, home and food. Bears included Polar Bear, Sloth, Spectacle Bear, Brown Bear, Panda Bear, and Black Bear. I wasn't sure how this would go, but he really enjoyed working since the information was focused on the four areas. After we were done with each bear, we went to the web cams and looked up the bear we had just studied. He was then allowed to pick other animals from the nationalzoo.si.edu, sandiegozoo.org, and youtube.com.

We wrapped the week up with one additional game, art projects and one more least bear hunt. Actually, I think we went on a bear hunt at least a dozen times with much laughter and playful screaming. The last game that we played was focused on matching numbers. Stephen has been working on "same" and "different", so this fit in nicely. I laid a path of cards number cards and bear cards for the kids to match on a game card. I am always so amazed with how much they work together. This game was followed by another request for a bear hunt.