Before Five in a Row: The Runaway Bunny

We recently rowed The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown.

It was a much loved story. I would often find Samuel reading the story to himself after we had completed our reading and activities for the day.

One of the first things we did was pull out Goodnight Moon and compare illustrations. We talked about the pictures on the wall in the great green room and how they were the same as the ones in The Runaway Bunny. This was truly fascinating to my toddler. He loved comparing the scenes in each book to see what was the same and different.

I printed off The Runaway Bunny printables from Homeschool Creations (links below). We reviewed vocabulary words from the story – stream and crocus were new words for Sam to learn.

We talked about the letter B and other words that start with the the letter B. He loved circling the pictures. The Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center continues to be his favorite learning tool. He asks for it every day even when we aren’t doing focused learning time.

We practiced writing our letter B, and I continue to be amazed by his ability to trace the letters. I helped him do the capital letters, but he did all of the lower case letters.

Shadow matching was a challenging, but fun, activity. He worked really hard to match each bunny. We did this several times in a row.

I laminated these sequencing cards and used velcro to attach the “what comes next bunny.” I wanted to be able to use this for other lessons later, and it’s a great busy bag activity.

I laminated some super fun playdough mats from PreKinders (link below). Using playdough, we created carrots to add to the garden. We worked on number recognition, counting, and fine motor skills to roll the dough into carrot shapes.

He eventually abandoned the carrots for carrot meatballs. I suppose it still works the same. 😉

We worked on the letter B by making this cute bunny. All you need is construction paper or card stock, googly eyes, cotton balls, glue, foam (ears and nose), scissors, and a marker. Don’t forget to make a cotton tail with leftover cotton balls!

The Before Five in a Row Curriculum instructed us to talk about different shades of various colors based on the illustrations in the book. We pulled out our crayons and started coloring.

I also asked him to draw a picture of the fishing scene from the book. It was fun watching him try to figure out how to do this!

I put a little masking tape on the floor for a tight rope one day. We even used an umbrella (the only one I could find!). We walked a tight rope just like mother bunny.

Finally, we pretended to be the mother bunny blowing our babies wherever we wanted. Our babies were cotton balls and pom poms. We used straws to make wind. This was a huge hit!

The Runaway Bunny was such a fun book for rowing! There are so many ideas to pull from the scenes in the book, and it quickly became a fun learning experience. Reading the book for five days in a row really helped us to view the illustrations and scenes in a new way each day. I even loved the repetition this time!

Printables We Used:

• The Runaway Bunny Lapbook @ Homeschool Share
• The Runaway Bunny Printables @ Homeschool Creations
• Runaway Bunny Fold-n-Learn @ FIAR w/ subscription
• Easter Theme Playdough Mats @ PreKinders

Don’t forget to check out our other Before Five in a Row posts here.

Be sure to follow my Pinterest board for FIAR for more ideas!

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