Another Celebrated Dancing Bear is one of the fabulous collection of books from the Five in a Row curriculum. It is set in Russia. We used it along with the FIAR text books and lots of other books and activities.
Unhappy with his lot in life working at the local hospital, Boris struggles to congratulate his friend Max who is a much ‘celebrated dancing bear’. Max’ fame accentuates Boris’ discontent. But worry not! Max is on the case, as he kindly offers to teach Boris how to dance, so that he too can become ‘another celebrated dancing bear’
Goals this Week
- Complete the FIAR study for Another Celebrated Dancing Bear
- Learn about Russia using a literature based method
- Create some Russian themed art
- And learn a bit about Tchaikovsky
In My Book Box









Where on Earth is Russia?
We used the following books to learn a bit more about Russia in general:




Our book was set in Russia so the girls put together our map of the world puzzle and found Russia:
Another Celebrated Dancing Bear: Russian Inspired Art
We did some Russia inspired art using ArtAchieve as our art teacher. We are huge fans of ArtAchieve as each lesson is very cultural and includes lots of facts about the country the art is inspired by. This was a paint resist technique focusing on colour values:
Another Celebrated Dancing Bear: Painted Russian Dolls
I had found this painted dolls kit in The Works at a fairly good price a few months back and the girls had been nagging to use it ever since:
The dolls were very small but they enjoyed painting them (even if it did take 2 1/2 minutes!):
And that’s it. Nice and simple and it finished off our study of Asia perfectly, as we prepare to move into Europe.
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What a fun unit! We studied Russia when the Olympics were being held there and found so many wonderful books to enjoy. My middle son loves his nesting animal dolls but I adore that kit!
Angel on the Square is an amazing book!
It is fun seeing you teach your youngers as I have already seen your olders being taught! Reminds me of the good old days!
I adore nesting dolls, I think they are the coolest thing.