About the Preschool Book

This exciting variation of The Bear Went Over the Mountain tells the story of a lovable bear who comes back over the mountain to visit a little girl. His entertaining antics keep preschoolers laughing as the bear falls in a puddle of mud, hurts his nose and runs from a snake.

This friendly bear enjoys an exciting day playing with the little girl and her dog and together the new friends share a treat and a lot of laughs. The bear ends the story by saying good night, making this book an excellent choice for a nap time or bed time story.

From the Reviewer

The Bear Came Over to My House is a wonderful story for preschoolers that can be read or sung to bring an added dimension to story time. Singing a story holds preschoolers attention and makes the story more memorable. Preschoolers will laugh as the bear tries to play and gets into trouble every step of the way and quickly learn the words of this story by heart.

This rhythmic rhyme subtly teaches preschoolers about present and past tenses. Each page includes a present and past tense verb to describe the bear's actions. This is a great phonemic awareness activity for preschoolers learning pre-reading skills. This book includes wonderful opportunities for read-a-loud interactions with preschoolers, either as a group or individually. Preschoolers will ask for this book again and again!

Book Details

Reading Level: Baby-Preschool

Paperback: 32 Pages

Publisher: Puffin; Reprint edition (February 24, 2003)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0698119886

ISBN-13: 978-0698119888

Hi! I'm Rachel Lister, the Preschool Education writer at PreschoolRock.com. I live in Utah with my husband and two beautiful boys. When my oldest son was born, I quit my teaching job and opened a home daycare and preschool. I love to help preschoolers learn about the world around them. They make life interesting and I can't imagine doing anything different. If you have any ideas, suggestions or comments, feel free to contact me.

Helpful Tips for Parents

• Learning environments matter. A space with accessible books, puzzles, art supplies, and natural materials at child height encourages more learning than a child-proofed empty room.

• Expose children to multiple languages early if possible. The preschool window is the most efficient period for language acquisition the brain will ever have.

• Mistakes are how children learn. A classroom and home that treat mistakes as information rather than failure produces more confident, persistent learners.

• Field trips — even to the grocery store, the post office, or the library — are powerful educational experiences. Real-world contexts anchor abstract concepts in memory.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most important educational skill to develop before kindergarten?

Executive function — the cluster of skills that includes working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control — is the strongest predictor of kindergarten and long-term academic success. Executive function is built through play (especially complex pretend play), physical activity, music, and responsive adult interaction. It cannot be taught through drills or worksheets. A child with strong executive function can learn academic content readily when developmentally ready; a child with weak executive function struggles regardless of academic knowledge.

Should my preschooler be reading before kindergarten?

Reading before kindergarten is possible for some children and developmentally not expected of most. The literacy skills that predict reading success — phonological awareness (hearing sounds in words), letter knowledge, print awareness, and vocabulary — are the appropriate focus before age 5. These skills are built through: reading aloud daily, nursery rhymes and songs, alphabet activities, and rich conversation. A preschooler who loves books, knows their letters, and has a large vocabulary is fully reading-ready, whether or not they can decode words independently.

Related reading: See also our counting activities and our writing readiness guide for more ideas on this topic.

🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🎯 Self-Directed Learning — Learning that begins with the child's own question or interest produces the deepest understanding — and children who experience self-directed learning develop the intrinsic motivation that sustains learning throughout life.
• 💬 Vocabulary Expansion — Every new concept, activity, and domain-specific term a child encounters expands their vocabulary — and children's vocabulary at kindergarten entry is the single strongest predictor of reading comprehension at age 10.
• ✏️ Pre-Writing Development — Drawing, tracing, and early mark-making develop the fine motor control and visual-motor integration that handwriting requires — making every drawing activity a contribution to writing readiness.
• 📖 Story Structure Understanding — Understanding that stories have a beginning, problem, solution, and ending develops narrative comprehension — the mental schema children use to make sense of increasingly complex texts throughout their school years.

From the Preschool Book

"The bear came over to my house to see what he could see. And what do you think the bear saw? Me!"