I just pulled out my B4FIAR book and yes, it is talky isn't it (but then again, I like to discuss stuff
). But I have found it to be a great springboard for other ideas, and we like the classification cards, and we did a cut out cardboard bear for Jesse Bear and I made little clothes for him out of scraps of fabric -- ds1 really enjoyed that. For [/i]The Big Green Pocketbook[/i] we used a green back pack that we had around, and ds1 loved it -- he found various items to place into it (since boys can't have pocketbooks -- but that gave us an opportunity to talk about why mommies and girls have pocketbooks and boys don't).
There is a lot of CM exploration and observation built in, with some of the science lessons (i.e., with
The Runaway Bunny you get to look at a tree and see what insects and other critters live there).