Learning Resources Counting Bears

I am always thrilled to find new learning games for our kids ~ ones that are fun, but still work on basic skills like counting, colors, or letters. These Counting Bears from Learning Resources are just too cute!

Cookies Minus the Sugar…

Zachary has been eyeing these bears ever since they showed up at our house. He is a boy that loves to count and put patterns together, so when I pulled it out to use for school time, he plopped right now and helped me get the bears all set up.

The Counting Bears come in a ‘cookie jar’ ~ 40 bears total that look like chocolate and vanilla cookies. Each bear has red hearts on the stomach {anywhere from 1 to 10} and the arms of the bears are able to link to another bear. The bears also come with sequencing cards, matching cards and a spinner, along with four different game ideas.

The bears themselves are nice and thick ~ easy to grab onto and manipulate. The little hearts on their chests are 3 dimensional, so kids can feel how many hearts there are also ~ perfect for little fingers.

Suggested games to play with the Counting Bears are:

• Pair of Bears ~ a memory game to find bears with the same number of hearts
• Bear Match ~ match the bear to one of the cards in the deck
• Who’s Next? ~ make a number line from 1 to 10 by linking the bears
• Red Rover Bears ~ uses the spinner to help identify numbers and players sequence bears in numerical order

Other ideas:

• Patterning
• Sequencing ~ 1, 2, 3, ? {find the bear that comes next}
• Play a game of high/low ~ highest number of hearts wins

We played several different games, but Zachary had a lot of fun putting the bears in numerical order while also completing a pattern. This is a game that we are going to love having around, especially for Kaleb in the coming years!