FIAR- Another Celebrated Dancing Bear

We really enjoyed this book. And we really enjoyed this row. We kept it really simple, and everyone was included. This book is about a bear in the Russian Circus. He generously teaches his friend to dance, and helps him achieve his dream of also being in the circus.

Bible: The Good Samaritan, Jealousy

In this book the original dancing bear generously took the time to teach his friend how to dance, and even asked him to be in the circus with him. He could have been greedy, and wanted to be the only famous dancing bear, but he wasn’t. that week we had been talking a lot about how we should not think of ourselves better than others. During our family devotion time we read the story of the good Samaritan. we also talked later I the week about jealousy and how the original dancing bear was not jealous that his friend could now dance so well. We talked about jealousy that often comes up between a brother and a sister, and what we can to to help that to not become an issue.

Social Studies, Geography and Culture: Russia, Russian Culture, The Russian Circus

The kids enjoyed studying about Russia. We had the opportunity to go to a Russian Food Festival one weekend. It was not all we thought it would be, but we did get to get some Samovar Tea just like they had in the book. They were able to see a Russian Orthodox Church, and we talked about the onion shaped dome that Russia is know for.

We located Russia in our My First Atlas book, and another atlas that we have. We talked about how Russia is a part of both Europe and Asia. We located the capital of Russia.  For Hailey we talked a little about the Soviet Union. The kids painted the flag of Russia.

 

I showed the kids a few youtube videos of the Russian Circus.

 

Language: Titles

For this lesson we simply used the manual to discuss titles and how good titles require thought. In this story the title foreshadows the outcome of the book. In the beginning of the book there was only one celebrated dancing bear, and but the end of the book there are two celebrated dancing bears.

Art: Architecture

I showed the kids this picture of St. Basil’s Cathedral, and I read a little bit about this building. I had them point out different things they noticed about the building. Tall and short domes, Color, Patterns, onion shaped domes. I then had them draw their own Russia inspired buildings, and color them.

Math: Calendar

Though I regularly work with Christopher on calendar time, he still get very confused about yesterday, today, tomorrow. SO, we worked a bit on that the week that we rowed this book. 

Science: Freezing and Boiling Points, Brown Bears

For this portion of our study we completed several different lapbook activities from www.homeschoolshare.com