Brown Bear, Brown Bear

This week we are continuing our study of animals. We are focusing on the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr./Eric Carle.

The first thing we did was read the book and put up the animals on the felt board. My class is really into the felt board right now as the librarian has been coming and doing felt board stories once a month. They like to use the pieces to retell the story or make up their own story to act out.

Here is the website that I printed my felt board pieces from because they are just the right size for the felt board, but if you want larger images, you can also use this site.

After we read the book, I used the felt board animals to ask the children questions about animals such as: How many legs does the horse have?, Are there really purple cats?, How many of the animals have tails?, etc. This can lead to the kids coming up with questions of their own and if they can't figure out the answers, this is a great opportunity to say, LET'S GOOGLE IT! Never be afraid to say you don't know the answer in front of the kids even if you do know the answer. It is always more beneficial to take advantage of a teachable moment and let the kids figure out how to find the answer on their own!

The next step in our plan is to make a class book imitating the format of Brown Bear, Brown Bear by using the children's photos and having them write their own name. So it would go something like this: Sam, Sam who do you see? I see Lisa looking at me, etc. We will laminate the book and place it in the library area of the classroom for children to look at and tell the story on their own.