"Ask Mr. Bear" - BFIAR Activities

What a fun read!!! Oh my stars this book!! How precious?! For this book, I took a heavy turn towards farming and dairy farming, sheep sheering, what can be done with milk, wool, and eggs, animal characteristics from the animals in the book, and more. And using these areas of study, we incorporated a lot of bible, sensory, hand skills, art, academics, and play!

Here is what we got into:

For our bible verse to go along with the book we studied 2 Corinthians 9:7 - "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."

In the book, the little boy's mother is having a birthday and he is desperately seeking to find his mother the perfect gift. Ellie and I decided to throw a birthday party for her favorite baby doll, Molly. Ellie told me Molly was turning 1 year old! We decorated the house with a banner and balloons. 

Ellie got a lot of hands on and manipulation skills by practicing wrapping gifts in boxes with wrapping paper for Molly. I let Ellie choose three gifts to give Molly. She chose her own toys - deeply beloved toys - to share with Molly. She chose her penguin who she named Cauliflower, Her giraffe named Penelope, and a blanket that looks like a tiger. I actually think this was the first real time Ellie has used a reel of tape. She had to learn to handle the tape with one hand and holding the paper with another, folding the paper, and bringing the whole package together. She really did an awesome job! I told her it didn't have to be perfect because I am actually a terrible gift wrapper. I have no patience for that. To me, if the gift is covered and hiding in the paper that is all that matters. Ha! So I just encouraged her to take her time, it's ok to make mistakes, and we can learn from mistakes and this should be fun. She really was receptive to these words of encouragement and it set a really good tone of play instead of skill practice or being forced into doing anything (because I truly hate wrapping gifts so I wouldn't blame her if she did too! Haha!) But she actually really enjoyed this and she displayed so much enthusiasm and asked me to let her do all the things! I only sat as a guide. 

We put on party hats and then Ellie helped Molly open the gifts she wrapped and she spoke so sweetly to her little doll baby! When I first suggested throwing Molly a party, Ellie laughed at me and said, "But Molly isn't a real baby, Mommy, just pretend." I told her I was aware but I think it would be fun and she got very excited for this silly little imaginary play! 

Well, every birthday girl needs a cake! So, we made a healthy (because why not?) chocolate, chocolate chip cake with chocolate ganache. Yum. And guilt free!! Here is the recipe: Avocado Chocolate Cake

After we baked and iced the cake, we stuck some candles in it...Ellie doing most of that, and lit them. We sang Happy Birthday and had some cake after supper! 

For this book, I really wanted to visit our local farms for farm tours with Ellie but they won't start back up with tours for another month. So I took it upon myself. We have the best dairy farm here in the Upstate known as Happy Cow Creamery. I took Ellie out there one day where we sat and watched the cows. Ellie talked to me about the cows and she told me, "The cows are laying down because they are cold!" Yes!! That is factually true! That is why they were laying down! I was so proud of her knowledge on this from a book we had read long ago. She tried to call them over to her like she calls her dog, Blondie. After spending time with the cows, we went to the farm store/grocery and purchased their cheeses, ice cream, milk, eggs, and more. Then, even in the cold, Ellie wanted to pic-nic with her ice cream as we usually do. So in the sunny yet freezing weather, we sat and Ellie ate ice cream, and we read our book again along with some go along books. 

Then, I wanted to get us some goat cheese. I LOVE Possum Kingdom Kreamery which is just down the road from Happy Cow, but calling ahead, they too were closed for tours and the store was closed for another month. I love this farm because they have so many animals. They are actually an animal sanctuary on top of a goat dairy farm. They give awesome tours, have a great selection of products, and a pic-nic spot. Since they were closed, we drove out to Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery where we got sheep cheese and goat cheese! I'd never had sheep cheese! The sheep cheese came from Whispering Pines Farms who I actually follow on Facebook. So that was cool! We got goat cheese yogurt also from Split Creek Farm.  

I got all these products for Ellie to indulge in while I read about the farming process of these products, sheep shearing, care of goats, how to feed the animals, and types of chickens, goats, cows, and geese. I got some things too for her to share with her friends at one of my friend's parent's house where they farm and garden! We took a pic-nic of our local farm goodies and got to spend the afternoon with the animals playing, learning, reading, and snacking.  I actually had two awesome friends to volunteer to show me around their farm and parent's farm. Between the two farms, we took home farm fresh eggs that looked like Easter eggs that we got to gather ourselves, fed chickens and goats, held baby chicks and a baby goat, petted chickens and saw cattle, geese, pigs, and a great Pyrenees. Ellie got hilariously chased by a hissing male goose! I cracked up! Being with friends and taking in the good life God intended in the warm spring like weather was really soul filling. And we learned so much! We learned about the milking of goats, the laying of eggs whether fertilized or not, heat lamps, gentleness and patience and the care of the animals and all they require. Diligence, patience, trust, resilience, and hard work!

We counted the eggs we took home and noted the colors and characteristics as well.

For some art, we used feathers (like from geese and hens in the books) to paint. We just used craft feathers because I wanted to save my real bird feathers for other learning opportunities. Using paint, paper, and feathers, Ellie stamped, wrote, and slithered her feathers along her paper and it turned out so beautifully. At the end, she glued three feathers to her painting. 

Another art piece was to use yarn which comes from wool which comes from sheep! So I wrapped yarn along a rolling pin. Then, Ellie chose paint colors and told me where to squirt them directly on her page. then she got to rolling that rolling pin across her paper and the texture was awesome. She sometimes went slow and soft, pausing. Other times, she went fast and hard and crazy! Then she later said, "Woo! I'm done!" It turned out so beautiful. I love the colors and textures.

We made our own butter! Here is how: 

    Ingredients: * 1 pint Heavy cream

                        * 1 tsp Kosher salt

                        * Ice water

    Directions: 

    1. Place heavy cream in food processor on "grind" for 2-3 minutes. You can watch the change happening together of the liquid form becoming solid! It also changes from white to a faint yellow in color. 

    2. Continue mixing until the cream separates into butter and butter fat. Drain off butter fat. (I used a Pampered Chef can strainer.) Reserve that draining for things like pancakes!

    3. Add 1/2 cup ice water and continue to blend for 30 seconds. Open and drain our the water (again I used my Pampered Chef can strainer). Repeat this one more time. 

    4. Place the butter in a container which you plan to store it in and fold in the salt little by little by stirring it in. Mix well. 

    5. Cover and refrigerate for later use!

We made homemade ice cream using milk we bought from our local farmers! We used our Cusinart Ice Cream Maker!

Continuing with our study of animals and farm life with the animals given in the book, for a sensory bin and creative play, Ellie got a bag full of farm animal figurine toys dirty in the mud (which was homemade chocolate pudding) and then washed them off in a sudsy warm bath. This was very satisfying and entertaining for her! She had full conversations going between the animals. 

Here Ellie is drinking from a straw her natural berry flavored Goat Milk Yogurt purchased at Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery from our local farmers, Split Creek Farms. She learned in this study we can get milk products from cows, sheep, and goats! So yummy! We are so thankful for our local farmers and the local grocers who provide their products as well.

Ellie took a pinecone and wrapped around it white woolen yarn to make her own sheep! She glued some eyes and a tail to it. We laughed at how funny it looked! 

We took some of our play outdoors for a scavenger hunt walk around out neighborhood where I had hidden one of each of the animals from the book with the item they each offered up as a gift! Ellie had each animal as a stuffed animal or a toy figurine. I paired each animal with its item then hid them throughout the one mile loop of our neighborhood in the woods, by the lake, near the pines, and even in a hollow log. Ellie was stoked for this game! We got out with her toy baby stroller and I told her to keep her eyes peeled! She looked and ran each time she spotted a fluffy friend! We did story sequencing of events playing this game and remembering details. I would ask her, who do you think we will find next? What gift do you think they will have? And she answered logically and correctly! This was a lot of fun and the weather was perfect! And Mr. Bear was at the end of the hunt waiting on her with a big bear hug!

We did Milk science with Whole milk, dish soap, and food coloring! There is a science behind this experiment. What we see happening when we touch the soap on a Q-tip to the colored milk is this: 

First, food coloring is less dense than milk so that causes the food coloring to remain suspended in the fat molecules of the milk. Adding dish soap breaks up the fat molecules causing the food coloring to rapidly spread out. 

For our go along books, we used a lot of birthday theme books, bear stories, and farming books, farm science and farm animals. Farm Anatomy was an excellent read. I love all the Julia Rothman Anatomy book series. We actually snuggled down with it at bedtime and read the relevant chapters together such as about cattle, goats, sheep, chickens, and other such things. We both learned so much - so many new things about daily life here in America in which we obtain food and clothing from these animals and the hard work of our local farmers.