b is for bear (Part 2)

See Part One here!


Books 

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.

This is a favorite book in our home, as it is for many children. Jonathan loved this book early on, and it helped him learn his colors and animals. The text is predictable and makes it easy for toddlers to chime in. It was perfect to pull it out for our b is for bear day.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr.

We also own and enjoy the second book in this series, featuring different zoo animals and the sounds they make. We had fun imitating the different animal sounds.



Pretend Play
Sun Hats & Wellie Boots recently posted about how they reenacted the bear hunt story. We haven't done this yet, but it's such a great idea!


Math


We pulled out our counting & sorting bears. Jonathan loves these! He sorts them by color and we practice counting how many bears there are. We've been practicing counting 1-5.

The Princess and the Tot shared a great Montessori-style idea for these bears- I had Jonathan practice placing them into an empty wipes container. He liked dropping them into the wipes container and then opening the container and dropping them out. It was a great activity that I'm sure we'll come back to!

Gross Motor


We did the actions along with the rhyme Teddy Bear Teddy Bear Turn Around. We also danced to the Wiggles Song: the Monkey, the Bird and the Bear.


Fine Motor Skills/Practical Life 


We pulled out our Melissa and Doug Basic Skills Board. This is a puzzle which features a bear who has different items of clothing to snap, buckle, zip, etc. Jonathan and I have been working on learning how to put his clothes on and take them off, so this puzzle helps him to practice some of those skills.

Art 


We did a B is for Brown Bear magnet page from Making Learning Fun-- but this time instead of coloring with do-a-dot markets, we used crayons. We've been practicing coloring with the Kumon Let's Color books and we've progressed to the pages where Jonathan has a small white space to try to color. The goal of these pages is to help tune fine motor skills in preparation for writing. So coloring in a Do-a-Dot/magnet page is a perfect correlated activity.

Games

I printed out the Heads & Tails puzzle game from 1+1+1=1. Jonathan did a great job putting the pieces of the different Brown Bear characters together. He's progressed a lot with doing basic puzzles. In fact, it may have been a little too easy for him.


Snack 


We had Teddy Grahams which were a big hit!

Library Links- Use Worldcat to find some these resources in a local library

• Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?
• Going on a Bear Hunt
• Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?
• Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?
• Kids in Action CD 

Web Resources


B is for Bear @ First School



Book Resources:

• Brown Bear Brown Bear @ DLTK Teach
• Brown Bear @ Virtual Vine
• Brown Bear @ Homeschool Share
• Brown Bear Tot Pack @ 1+1+1=1
• Brown Bear Magnet Pages @ Making Learning Fun
• Polar Bear @ DLTK-Teach
• Jesse Bear B4FIA Unit @ Delightful Learning
• Jesse Bear Resources @ Homeschool Share
• Bear Hunt Storytelling Pattern @ KidzClub (updated 3/8/11)