Book - 'How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear?' by Brian P Cleary

Among our recent arrivals we've gotten a few of the Words are Categorical series by Brian P Cleary, including How Much can a Bare Bear Bear?: What Are Homonyms and Homophones? as well as How long or How Wide? which is part of the Math is Categorical series by the same author. We generally don't 'do' textbooks as such but I ordered these as they looked like rhyme-y fun books that the boys would be into and I like leaving stuff like this lying around for the kids to stumble across in their own time. I had a read through them all when they arrived the other week and then stashed them away on a shelf without mentioning them to the boys.

The other day Shmoo Bear proudly presented us with a series of carefully labelled drawings. After the appropriate admiration of the artwork, The OH got Shmoo to explain all the fine details of his drawings and they went through the couple of spelling errors that he'd made. One of the words that he'd had difficulty with was 'plane' and that led to a discussion about homophones and homonyms. Shmoo and I made up a list of all the ones we could think of (and, like any 7 year old, he had a good giggle when he thought of we and wee). I then casually mentioned that one of the new books on the shelf had lots of homophones and homonyms in it and both Shmoo and Loo excitedly ran to explore. It will probably be another year or two before Loo really grasps the concept of homophones, synonyms, verbs, adjectives and the like but he still really enjoyed the flowing rhyme of the books and the illustrations. Both of the boys have been back to the bookshelf several times to explore the new books. ;)

And we've had fun listening out for homophones and homonyms in everyday life since, particularly in the kids' favourite Peter Combe CDs. Gotta love those Aussie classics! :)