Children all have a special teddy bear that helps them feel safe. On the first day of school, ask them to bring their favorite bear to school. Use the bears to plan many learning activities in your kindergarten or preschool classroom.
Let each child hold up their bear and tell something about it. They might tell the bear’s name, who gave it to them and how they play with it. Do they sleep with it?
Ask the Kindergarten classor pre-school children to classify each bear. Which is the biggest, smallest, cutest, most colorful etc.
Discuss different types of bears. Is your bear a brown, polar, panda, or black bear? Talk about the difference between real and make believe bears. Ask if Pooh Bear, Care Bears or Yogi Bear is real.
What are the habits of bears? What do they eat? Where do they sleep? What does hibernation mean? Where do bears live?
Read the classic story, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” Use the story to explain big, bigger, and biggest. Ask which bear was the biggest? Who had the biggest chair. Who was the smallest bear? Your kindergarten class can act out the story. Let them make bear headbands from strips of paper and paper ears.
Another great bear story to share with your class is, “Corduroy.” After reading the story, let the children construct Corduroy out of paper and add his green overalls and buttons or paint bears on white construction paper. Suggest one child pretend to be Corduroy and look for his button.
Encourage the kindergarten or pre-school children to move like bears. They can growl, show their claws, and pretend to hibernate. Ask the children to pretend to climb a tree, cross a log, catch a fish in the river or walk on four legs.
Sing bear songs such as “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See”, “The Bear Went over the Mountain” or “Going on a Bear Hunt.” Let your pre-school or kindergarten children make up actions to use with the songs.
If possible, take your kindergarten class or pre-school class on a field trip to a zoo to see real bears. At the very least, show the class pictures of real bears.
Finally, end your bear activities by having a teddy bear picnic. If weather permits, spread a blanket outside and let the class bring all the stuffed bears outside to play and eat. Be sure to have some honey on hand as we know bears love honey.
Use your imagination to plan other bear activities in your kindergarten or pre-school classroom. The possibilities are endless.