A Square Book for your little Bear! (Bear in a Square - Stella Blackstone)

Member Name: cmh4135

Product:	Bear in a Square - Stella Blackstone
Date:	20/08/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good teaching opportunities

Disadvantages: Lacking in longevity

I love children's books that can be used in many ways; books that can be used to teach counting or colour, shape or language in a way that doesn't feel stiff or formal. When my son selected "Bear in a Square" from the library my first thought was that this book was too far below his standard. A flick through the pages revealed very little text and, on the face of it the book seemed only to teach shapes (all of which, save for the oval were familiar to my 3 year old). My son persisted, however, and, in some respects, I'm glad he did.

This really is one of those books that, if a child relates to it, can provide easy teaching material. My son soon cottoned on to the fact that not only was the book teaching shape but that each page had one more shape to spot than the preceding page - so we got counting, and of course this brought observational skills to the fore as not all of the shapes were immediately apparent.

That the language was so simple meant that it was also a useful resource for some "look and see" language acquisition. This is particularly the case with the shape words as there's quite a clue on each page allowing the child the confidence to guess until they get to the point where the word is recognised out of context. There is also a rhythmic rhyme going through the text although I've found this hard to bring out as each page holds a question and, by the time the child has answered the question the rhyme is lost.

The book can also be used to prompt some good discussions ranging from the simplistic "what is going on in the pictures" to the more abstract "what shapes make up X".

The illustrations are bright and colourful drawn in cartoon style and looking like they've been coloured with crayon or water colour. The constant in the story is the bear and he is the only thing that hangs the text together as there is no "story" as such.

As an interactive book this is far better than it might first seem and I'm glad my son persisted in his desire to borrow the book.

In terms of longevity I'm not sure that this book is really worth buying. At 3 I would say that my son is too advanced for it to have an awful lot of use (particularly as memory is so strong at this age). I suspect that a 2 year old could benefit but might, perhaps, not benefit from the language opportunities that the book offers.

Worth borrowing from the library though!

Summary: A book worth borrowing from the library