Berenstain Bears

How Your Garden Grows – Berenstain Bears Grow-It!

It’s that time of year where we are planning our garden, watching how our garden grows, or maybe you’re already enjoying some of your gardens spoils. My kids love watching everything change as the season goes on and are full of questions about all of it. Try as I may, I don’t always have the answers right away but I do find them whether I find them online quickly or books for them to explore and find the answers themselves.

Two of the grade three science curriculum (for a lot of Canada) outcomes are exploring soils, and plant growth and changes. My oldest will be in the third grade next year, but I’m not going to miss the Spring/Summer opportunity to teach as our garden grows. And to teach it to my three year old and soon to be first grader too.

How Your Garden Grows – Berenstain Bears Grow-It!

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While this is suppose to be for science (when I send in my paperwork next year) there are all these opportunities to work on math, art, and language arts as well. I have some science experiments you can do at home, as well as some printables for you and your kids to work on. For preschoolers to third graders.

The Berenstain Bears book Grow-It! is a great book that answers a lot of questions about growing plants in general and why they are important.

Soil Test

You can buy soil test kits for a few dollars or you can do a complete DIY soil test kit. We did both. You can read about it here, Soil Testing – Garden Science.

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We did some soil testing today in the wind. #science #homeeducation #happylearning #wildandfreechildren
A post shared by Ashley (@forgetfulmomma) on May 27, 2017 at 1:20pm PDT

Journal How Your Garden Grows

Planting a garden, and watching and waiting while your garden grows will give your children lots of opportunities to journal about it. Choose to either journal daily, every other day or as we will be doing, weekly. It’s up to you and your schedule/routine.

Worksheets

Labeling the parts of seeds, the cycle the go through and more! Perfect for different ages and includes journal pages.

Another great book that you might want to check out is the Nature Anatomy, I recently picked it up from our library, and within minutes I knew I had to buy it. The information and illustrations are amazing. I have it in my wish list on Amazon to buy when I do some back to school shopping this summer.

For other book and unit study ideas follow this link to some great ones.

How Your Garden Grows - Berenstain Bears Grow-It!

Easter Books We’re Reading

by Ashley Mullen

I love reading holiday themed books with my kids, Easter books are hitting our bookshelves now. We have some favorites that we love reading. All three of my children love books (like these classics, and our favorite winter books). This is how I raised them, I always have a couple books on the go myself, and we spend as much time as possible at the library.

Easter Book for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Easter Books We’re Reading

I started reading to my kids the moment I found out I was pregnant with Austin and haven’t stopped yet.

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Let’s start with everyone’s favorite Little Critter. I love how easy these are to read, great for beginner readers.

Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter is celebrating Easter in this classic, funny, and heartwarming book. Whether he’s dyeing eggs, searching for baskets, or snacking on sweets

Little Critter is very excited on Easter morning. He wakes up to find a present from Mom and Dad—a bunny named Egg. But there is much to be done before Little Critter can go out and play.

Berenstain Bear books are one of my absolute favorites to read with my kids, they have great lessons presented in a fun way.

On Easter morning, the cubs find the best surprise of all in their Easter basket: a tiny baby bunny. When the Bear family goes on an Easter egg hunt, the bunny has an idea of its own. It wants to find other Easter babies!

The Berenstain Bears are back in this Easter adventure! Spring is here, the sun is shining, and the Berenstain Bears are getting ready for the Easter parade!

All three of my kids love Lego: books, movies, and my girls love building with their Lego.

There’s never a dull moment in LEGO(R) City, not even on Easter!

It’s Easter morning, and all the animals have come together to join in the Easter Parade. Follow the Easter Bunny as he leads ducks, chicks, rabbits, and more springtime animals as they wear their Easter best, carry balloons, play instruments, and march in the parade .

Peter Cottontail is out sick, and there’s only one dinosaur who’s up to the task of delivering his eggs on Easter: T. Rex! All T. Rex has to do is work on hopping—without the wiggle.

Gauge is a big fan of Pete the Cat, so we have been enjoying these often.

When Pete wakes up Easter morning, ready to check out his basket of goodies, he discovers the Easter Bunny needs a little extra help.

Sing along with Pete the Cat in his fun adaptation of “Five Little Monkeys.” Fans of Pete the cat will love rocking out to this classic tune with a groovy Easter twist in this hardcover picture book.

We have two girly girls so Pinkalicious is right up our alley.

When Pinkalicious wakes up on Easter morning, she finds a note from Edgar Easter Bunny that sends the Pinkerton family on an eggsciting Easter scavenger hunt!

Easter Holiday Books

We try to find books for every holiday and season. It’s a great way to get them excited about it, get you excited about it too. Plus, its reading. Reading out loud to your kids has great affects long time. Encourages them to be life long readers and learners.

I have books all over our house to encourage reading. My girls have a small bookcase in their room full of books they find interesting. We have books for all three of them in the living room. Books are everywhere.

What type of books are you reading right now?

Our Favourite Classic Books

by Ashley Mullen

As a child I liked to be read a bed time story, and now Austin does too. It is our down time, and makes for an easier bedtime routine if she knows there is a story waiting at the end. My favorite part of our story time would be that the stories that are her favorite books were my favorites as a child as well.

Our Favorite Book

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Berenstain Bears

Who doesn’t love a good Berenstain Bear book? These were my all time favorite as a child and still are and I love how much my kids likes them too. You can buy their DVDs.

Little Critter

Little Critter (Mercer Mayer) books are fun. Austin wasn’t very old when her Great Grandmother gave her one of the books that was Hubby’s from when he was young. These books are great for beginner readers too as the stories aren’t long, the words are easy to ready and there aren’t a lot of words on a page to overwhelm.

Dr Seuess

We, sadly don’t have many Dr Seuss books, but we have a few, including the one pictured above. I do tend to borrow them from the library though. They are great beginner read books, repetitive, after all Green Eggs and Ham was written using only 50 words.

Robert Munsch

Robert Munsch, who doesn’t love these books? They are silly and fun to read. While they tend to be a little long to read they are repetitive, it fact just seeing the cover of Mortimer has the kids song in my head, and I can’t remember the last time we read that one was.

Needless to say, we have a lot of books, and these are only the amazing “classics ones. Not including the counting, ABC’s, Dora the Explorer and other books that they also have.

I am a big fan of reading, I can dive into one and stay for hours, if my kids are sleeping. Role modeling reading is almost as important as reading to your children. Most children want to be big and do things like Mom and Dad.

Berenstain Bears

How Your Garden Grows – Berenstain Bears Grow-It!