Hello!

I can’t wait to share with all of my younger kid mommies this awesome manipulative that I think you and your little one will absolutely adore! I have posted several pictures of these little guys, and I have had several people ask me where I got them and what all you can do with them. Seriously guys, my little one loves them!

So first off, I got these with the idea that I would start talking to Jonathan about colors. Now, we have been talking about colors a lot, and he is very interested in the idea, but the bears haven’t been as utilized for this as I thought. My little one will request “bears” most days. When he pulls them out, he enjoys working on his transformation skills instead. He loves to put a few bears in a spoon before transferring them to a small kid’s bowl. Finally, when he has a handful in the small bowl, he will move them to a bigger bowl. He will dump them all out on the floor when he is done, and the process starts all over. We will talk about the colors of the bears, but at this moment, they are all blue. We are getting there! 😉

I got these awesome counting bears on Amazon. You can check them out here. This particular set comes with 60 counting bears (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple), matching sorting cups, a dice, tongs, and bag to put everything in. You will also receive a book with downloadable activities. (Pinterest also has some great ideas! Just search “counting bear activities”.)

Honestly, I was very surprised with the quality of the product. I somewhat expected for my child, who is very rough with toys, to break the tongs. They are still kickin’ it two months later though! Having the storage back is also a life saver. With all those pieces, it is hard to keep up with them unless you have a designated storage location.

Now the product does come with some suggested activities, but really, they can be used for so many different tasks. Here are just a few to give you some ideas:

• counting
• comparison
• sorting
• color recognition
• patterns
• grouping
• addition
• subtraction

Or you can simply play with these cute little bears and stack the cups into a pyramid! Jonathan seriously plays with these around five days of the weeks. Now, the negative to that, is that we end up with these little bears EVERY WHERE. After the first day of us having them, I quickly realized we would have to enforce leaving the bears in the living room, or we would end up with these little guys in every room of the house. Therefore, resulting in the loss of bears.

Let me know what you think! Do you use another type of manipulative that you love? Let me know!

Some of the links included above are affiliate links, meaning, I will earn a commission if you click-through and make a purchase at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products that I use and love!

So until next time,

Okie Mom