B is for Bear

Kate painted a cardboard cave for her bears to hibernate.

They look so cozy in there.

Kate tried to fit in another cardboard cave, but it wasn't big enough for her, so she moved on to an end table covered with a blanket.

She made a bear craft and enjoyed a bear snack.

Reagan felt like hibernating too.  Maybe it's all this cold, snowy weather, or maybe hibernating just sounds like fun.

B is for Bears Part Two

 Kate did great sorting counting bears by color.  She knew exactly what to do, and went right to work!  She would even look closely at the orange and red bears to make sure she didn't mix them up.

We played with the bear family puzzle some more.  I tried to read Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? while we worked on the puzzle, but she wanted no part of that book.  She has strong opinions about books, and if it does not appeal to her right away then there is no way that it will be read.  She pulls the books she disapproves of out of my hands and puts them away!!!!  Reagan was like that, but not quite as bad.  Tyler and Collin would have let me read War and Peace; for them, I think it was more about being held.  They didn't care what I read to them, as long as I would hold them.  My girls like to be on the go, and will only sit for books they really want to hear!

Kate had some bear sensory play with bear shaped ice cubes.  She LOVED this!!!!!  I found this bear ice cube tray at Ocean State Job Lot and thought it would be fun; now I am so glad that I got it!  They also had apples, cats, dogs, and peace signs, all of which I got for less than two dollars total.

 Kate immediately made an observation that the ice was cold.

 She likes that Teddy Bear Counting book, so she let me read it, but she insisted on counting the bears herself.  She can count to ten, but she doesn't really get the 1:1 correspondence thing yet, so usually she insists there are either two or five of everything.

 She liked putting the ice bears into this little cup and then dumping them onto different parts of her body.

 This gave me the opportunity to tell her that ice melts and turns into water.

 Time to go refill the bear ice tray!

B is for Bear - Part One

This is the first time I made a theme lunch for Kate, and she thought it was so funny.  She LOVED biting off the bear's arms, legs, head, and then eating up his belly.  I ended up making it again the next day per her request. 

I also made her a bluebeary (ha ha ha) pancake with chocolate chip eyes, nose, and mouth.

Yes, I realize this bear looks a little weird.  Actually, it looks like a bear that got into a nasty fight! Whatever!  She liked it!

My bear cookies look much better!  They are peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips added for details.

 I didn't use a cookie cutter; I just made the head out of a regular ball of dough and then added two little balls of dough for ears.  The first batch looked weird because I forgot to account for spreading!  These look cute though.

This next sentence is for Tom.  Kate has not figured out puzzles yet.  Tom used to make fun of me because I always talked about Tyler and Collin being so good at puzzles when they were little.  Well, Kate doesn't have that spatial reasoning skill yet.  We're working on it.  (She actually spent some time working on puzzles with Grandma this morning!) Kate got this cute bear puzzle for her birthday, and it's perfect for working on puzzle skills and for our letter Bb fun.

I made beary (ha ha ha again, I crack myself up) blue play dough using my regular play dough recipe and adding about a tablespoon or so of grape Kool Aid powder for scent and a lot of blue food coloring.  I only had grape Kool Aid powder and I only used a little because I didn't want to turn the dough purple.  We don't drink Kool Aid; I use it for crafts like paint and play dough.

 We used play dough stampers to make bear paw prints and bear faces (Kate got these for Christmas from Papa and Grandma, and she uses them every time she plays with play dough).  They are super cute.

I am having so much fun coming up with themes for Kate!  I love it!  Stay tuned because I have a lot more bear fun to share!

A Polar Bear Snack

With our freezing temperatures lately, it only made sense to read a few polar bear books and enjoy a freezing cold polar bear snack.

To make the polar bear snacks, I used vanilla ice cream, marshmallows, and Raisinets (the only brown candy I had on hand).  Coconut would make nice "fur", but my kids would never eat it.

R does not care for marshmallows, so I just used whipped cream in place of the marshmallows.  I added a little whipped cream "snow" to both plates.

Here are a few of the polar bear books we are reading:

The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett - This is a retelling of the fairytale The Three Bears, but it takes place in the Arctic and features an Inuit girl.  We love everything by Jan Brett; her illustrations are simply brilliant.

Polar Bear Night by Lauren Thompson - A polar bear cub wakes in her warm den and sets out on a magical journey through her starlit world.  This is a nice bedtime story with simple text and simple illustrations.  

The Last Polar Bear by Jean Craighead George - The world is warming and the ice is melting, so Tigluk sets out to save the last polar bear.  Obviously, this is a story of the plight of the polar bears threatened by global warming, but it is not at all scientific and does not even use the term "global warming".  We enjoyed the story.

 

Paper Plate Bears

We got the book Chaucer's First Winter by Stephen Krensky from a box of Cheerios cereal.  You probably know that Cheerios has a program called Spoonfuls of Stories and it includes them putting books in the cereal boxes.  I eat a lot of Cheerios (yes, I said "I") so I usually buy the boxes of cereal with all of the different titles to add to our library.

Chaucer's First Winter is about a bear named Chaucer who knows that bears are supposed to sleep through the winter, but he is having so much fun making snowballs and sliding across the ice that he stays awake to enjoy all of the fun that winter brings.  This book is really cute.  We enjoyed the story, and the illustrations are perfectly adorable.  I really like that while Chaucer thinks his parents are asleep in the cave, they are actually watching him from a distance.  This book is a keeper.

C and R made paper plate bears to go along with the book.  First, they each colored a paper plate brown.  I cut circle ears out of brown paper lunch bags for them to tape onto the back of the plates.

They colored the inside of the ears black.  C and R glued on googly eyes.

Then, I trimmed clear plastic containers and filled them with brown paper scraps.  We taped these to the front of the paper plate faces.

C and R glued on button noses and drew mouths with a permanent marker.

Finally, we made each bear a paper scarf by folding a long rectangular piece of paper,

cutting fringe, and adding some decoration with crayon.

The scarves were taped and glued in place.  These bears will be nice and warm through the winter!

We made these bears before bed and R was too tired to pose with her bear!

 I am linking this to stArt at A Mommy's Adventures and Kids Get Crafty at Red Ted Art.