Tot School Time: Bears

This week, Maddie and I learned all about bears, primarily brown bears and polar bears (both her favorites). We had a ton of fun with all sorts of activities. Thanks for reading!

Setting Up...

I wanted to share one thing that is really working for me, as far as planning out our weekly units. On Sunday, I gather up all the activities and games that I've already completed the previous week. I lay out 12 trays (since that's as many as I have) and I "fill" them up. By that, I mean that they get laid out in their entirety, from glue to paint to whatever else is needed for that particular tray. This saves me so much time throughout the week!

As we move through the week, I always keep nine trays on her shelf. Some stay all week, but others (like crafts) get rotated out when it has been completed. As soon as I have an empty tray, I either put out another prepared tray or add something that I've found since Sunday.

Anyway, Sundays are my "busiest" planning days, which makes the rest of the week run smoothly for us. I hope some of that makes sense! Ha!

Okay, back to the theme...

Language Arts

We read many bear books, which did include five million Berenstain books. Maddie's favorites though were Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and We're Going on a Bear Hunt.

For Brown Bear, Maddie made her own brown bear with a paper plate and paint.

She loved adding all the facial details.

Now, this is something that I'd created a long time ago, but we found a new use for them this week!

I have a picture of each page of the story (I snapped shots, printed the pics and then laminated them) and as I read the story out loud, Maddie worked to sequence it. She loved doing this and we did it several times. It's funny to me that she has the last four or five sections memorized but not the beginning!

But, this is a great way to get hands-on with reading and learning.

She also made her own Brown Bear book by using THIS printable.

Making books is definitely still very much a favorite of hers.

But, the standout book this week was definitely We're Going on a Bear Hunt. Daddy checked it out from the library for us, but we might just have to purchase our own copy because it was that well-loved.

*Also, check out the author's reading of it on YouTube. It's a little oddball, but Maddie adored it!

I printed THIS book and she and I spent a good hour putting it all together.

Each page required a new medium, from watercolors to construction paper to sequins (to represent the snowstorm!).

We've reread this book a gazillion times and she actually has this small book memorized.

We also read Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? and used THIS page to practice tracing.

Obviously, it was a little bit hard but that's okay. She concentrated so hard on tracing and then focused just as hard on circling everything on the page.

Then, we decided to make our own Arctic land. I dumped out Rainbowland (actually, I bagged up the colored rice for another project someday) and we sifted through her figures, puling out all the "cold area" animals.

Then, I made up another batch of our snow and filled her tub. I don't think you can see, but I also cut out a lake from blue felt (because she said that the whales needed a home) and gave her my jar of ice rocks (or, most commonly known as florist rocks).

We played and played and played. Eventually, the snow chalet made its way into the box, as well as a few select princess figures.

Math

I didn't take an action shot of this, but she laid the three plates out (they're stacked in this picture) and then labeled each with the BIG, Medium and small labels that we'd used to previously sort snowballs. Then, she sorted the counting bears onto the correct plates.

This was actually pretty tricky because there's only a subtle difference between the BIG and Medium bears and she really had to look closely.

She also used the paint tray and tweezers to pattern berries (sparkly red pompoms) and salmon (Goldfish). Those are two of a brown bear's favorite foods, after all. :)

She did a good job with the this, although we did swap out the tweezers for the tongs because those Goldfish were being a tad stubborn.

Now, this is an on-going counting activity that I'll explain in more depth when I post about our calendar (coming, hopefully, later today).

I printed out a polar bear page, numbered 1-31 and gave her a sheet of sparkly star stickers. Each day, we cover that date with a sticker. It's highly exciting. :)

Science

Gosh, I cannot find a link for this page, but I'll keep looking...

Anyway, we used a large dice I made and we each took an ice cube. We had to roll the dice, match it to the direction and see who could melt their ice cube first.

She loved this! We discovered that rubbing it in our hands or submerging it in water made the melt the fastest (and we did it several times with several pieces of ice!).

She liked counting the dots and really loved when it landed on, "Sprinkle 10 shakes of salt on the ice cube." I'm pretty sure those ice cubes were dredged in salt!

Physical Activities

I used some blue Duct tape and created a river that ran right through our family room! First, we lumbered around like bears (sorry, no pics; I was busy moving like a bear) and ate fish that we caught in the stream.

Then, she decided that we should practice jumping over the river.

That also made her think about our fish, so we got those out...

And caught fish for the numerous bears that were, apparently, in our family room and acting very hungry.

Phonics

Since bear starts with a /b/ sound, we did some work with /b/.

She worked on THIS page, using brown markers, crayons and a brown Dot Stamper.

Now, this was our first foray into the world of worksheets and I only did it because I got it at the Target dollar spot.

She used blue and brown crayons to color in the things that started with a /b/ sound. Honestly, I'm not sure how crazy she was about it, but she did complete it (we did hand-over-hand for the letter writing).

I do have to share a cute story, though. She was all done coloring the items in, but I noticed she'd skipped the boat. I asked her what it was a picture of and she looked at it, looked at me and said, "That's a Noah's ark! No B sound!" :)

And finally, we got out my stash of bells and bowls and she played and sorted and sang Jingle Bells over and over again.

Arts and Crafts

We made a panda bear on a CD...

Yeah, I know.

It looks like a cat, huh? But those aren't whiskers; Maddie's contribution of black on the panda bear included two lines across his face. Ha!

When our buddy Kayla was over for a play date, each girl made a cotton ball polar bear.

First, they used the cotton balls and white paint to create snow, and then they glued (clean) cotton balls onto THIS polar bear page.

When dry, we cut out the bears and glued them on the snowy page. Fun, fun!

And so, that's our week on bears! Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed because there were about 2.3 million more activities I would've liked to do, had we an endless supply of time and energy. But, then I remember that she's two and a half, and the fact that she can say, "I learned about bears because I love bears!" is enough for me. :)

Check out what other tots have been up to by clicking over to Carisa's blog!