Bears, Bears, Bears

The theme today was bears, with a big bear puppet, Going on a Bear Hunt activity, and a couple of bear books.

We read an old classic and a new classic: Blueberries for Sal and Orange Pear Apple Bear. Blueberries for Sal is a long book, and I wondered if it would hold the interest of the younger ones in the group, but it did. They were involved in the story. And Orange Pear Apple Bear, by Emily Gravett, is a delight. The concept is so simple and the execution is so attractive and engaging. It subtly teaches about colors, shapes, and narrative sequence, with only five words plus some clever pictures.

Here's the fingerplay we did:

One little bear, wondering what to do,
Along came another bear and then there were two.
Two little bears, climbing up a tree,
Along came another bear and then there were three.
Three little bears, ate an apple core,
Along came another bear and then there were four.
Four little bears, found honey in a hive,
Along came another bear and then there were five.
What did they do with all that the honey?

They ate it all up---Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Our craft was a paperbag bear puppet with blueberries.

A paperbag puppet is nothing new, but I thought it was fun to give him some blueberries. We used the eraser ends of unsharpened pencils to do our stamping. Luckily I had a couple blue ink stamp pads. Most of the bears had blueberries everywhere! Messy bears!