Review on 🐻 Dancing Bear Collection: Interactive Learning for Identification and Education by Evan Burnside

I'm a speech therapist for grades K-5 and this year my goal is to add more STEM activities to my classes. I received this set as part of our stone and mineral block and couldn't be happier! This set had a really good selection of stones and minerals that were the perfect complement. We had over 150 items which I sorted into jewelry organizers based on their type. I've included an image to show the different types of rocks and minerals included in my set. Please note that your kit may contain different types. As promised, I received two geodes, two arrowheads, and a handful of shark teeth. The kit also includes a reference sheet that can be used to identify most of the minerals contained. I find this set ideal for use in speech therapy as it allows for multiple language development activities. Here are a few things you can do to improve your rock and mineral skills: 1. Description: We've talked about shape, size, color, and texture. A lot of my younger students didn't know what "rough" and "smooth" meant, so we were pretty good at nailing those concepts. You can also use words like "opaque" and "translucent".2. Correspondence: It was a favorite activity! After describing each mineral, I asked the students to look for them on the reference sheet. This is a great activity to encourage teamwork/social skills.3. Guessing Game: Another fun activity we did was Mystery Mineral. I asked the students to choose a mineral and provide clues based on the properties of the mineral. Again, this activity can be customized for different target areas.4. Comparison and Contrast: We also used these minerals for basic comparison and contrast. You can use the Venn diagram to see the difference. I love the hands-on nature of these courses! My students enjoyed looking at different minerals and learning their names. There was such a wide variety of bricks in this set that I was really able to mix language goals with scientific concepts. I will be using this set for years to come! PERFECT for the classroom. Dancing Bear also offers a Fossil Collection Sorting Kit with over 100 items (over 20 different types of fossils!), an educational ID sheet, full color ID cards, pouches, a magnifying glass and shark teeth, the Dancing Bear trademark I can highly recommend. .