Are you sleeping little bear?

If you go out in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise. If you go out in the woods today, you’d better go in disguise! This week was the week the Capilano Playschool celebrated teddy bear picnics!

With the snow falling and winter officially here, the children and I spent time exploring Hibernation.

The Bear Cave

We transformed our house center into a bear cave - where we could read books, dress up like bears and snuggle in with some teddy bears.

Our sensory bin was filled with various animals who adapt or hibernate in the winter.

I love our little window, and although I wish our class had more natural light I am thankful at least we have a window in the classroom. I really enjoy seeing the children climb the stool to look out the window and explore our outside world.
We added some sun catcher gels of snowmen to play with for the cold season.

The sun really shines to light up the deciles.

 

Our craft was making new little teddy bears to decorate our bulletin board. The children cut out their own bear, before decorating him with some warm fur and googly eyes.

For our teddy bear picnic, I asked the children to colour a picture of the stuffed animal they brought. After, they told me some stories about their fluffy friends. It's great to spend time writing down what the children tell me  and encourage them to work on their story telling skills. Most of the stories were non fiction, so it also worked on their memories.

Some children did not bring bears, but horses and owls. I had to trace the bears to make diffrent animals to go along with items children brought. This lovely lady enjoyed seeing me trace the bear print out, and decided to do her own tracing.

In the gym we really loved singing songs about bears!

We played a game about a bear who falls asleep. Another little bear comes and steals their honey combs, so they have to chase them. It was a lot to happen in a little amount of time for the children and their peers. Practicing waiting for their turns to sleep or kidnap the honey, sneak up to the bear to not wake them before running away and engaging in a game of tag. When the children ran as fast as they could holding the pylon, it appeared as if the children were playing a game of football - holding the pylon in their arm while they ran for 3 seconds from a friend.

They love this game. PLAY IT AGAIN MS ASHA!

Isn't it funny how a bear likes honey? Buzz, buzz, buzz

After enjoying stories and conversations about other animals that slept, we played a sing along game.

The children would act out the animals as I sang
"Look at all the bears hibernate, hibernating oh so still ... are they ill? No they're just sleeping, and they snore (the children will snore like the animal, its cute). Wake up little bears and crawl crawl crawl, Wake up little bears and crawl crawl crawl, Wake up little bears and crawl crawl ... sleep"

We also did frogs that jump, groundhogs that bury, prairie dogs that scurry, bats that fly, snakes that slither and other animals the children could remember like skunks.

On Thursday/Friday, the children brought their own stuffy to class for a bears picnic. We sat on big blankets, and spent time learning about Polar bears, Kodiak bears, Grizzle bears, Black bears, Panda bears and Sun bears. We discussed bears that hibernate vs bears that do not, where they live and what they ate. After the children munched on some bear food while I read some bear stories.

 

 

 

Honey, fish and berreis - bears love them and so do we

Sincerely,
Ms Asha