Hibernating Animal Fun: Brown Bear Lesson

Hibernating Animal Fun

A unit of preschool ideas 

for different hibernating animals

Welcome to the first week of my Hibernating Animal Fun unit. We had finished our Arctic Animals unit, but I wanted to stick with a wintery theme, so I decided to spend a few weeks on different hibernating animals. 

Each week there will be books I recommend to go with each topic, a craft or two, songs, and motion rhymes/finger plays. 

This is the schedule:

Week 1: Bears

Week 2: Dormouse

Week 3: Chipmunk

We continue to start each class with the song "Good Morning to You" plus the snowy songs/fingerplays I found in a book I reviewed last year called I'm a Little Teapot!: Presenting Preschool Storytime compiled by Jane Cobb. 

We sang: 

Snowflakes

(to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb)

Snowflakes whirling all around,

all around, all around

Snowflakes whirling all around,

They are covering the ground.

(The original last line was, "Until they cover all the ground," but it didn't sound quite right to me, so I changed it. We fluttered our fingers all around through the song and spread our arms out for the last line.)

And of course our poem/finger play:

The Snow Fell Softly

The snow fell softly all the night

flutter fingers downward

It made a blanket soft and white

spread arms out

It covered houses, flowers and ground,

make pointed house, finger flowers, flat hands

But never made a single sound

get quieter and put finger in front of mouth

The children love this poem.

Then we got into the actual lesson.

Brown Bear Lesson

Our main books for the class were:

I read the books while we sat in our very own cave made with a couple of tables and a blanket. I had the children each bring in a teddy bear so they could pretend to be hibernating.

Crafts

We then made a couple of crafts. First we made our Egg Carton Bear in a Paper Bag Cave craft which I featured in my Littles Learning Link Up post on February 19th.

I had also decided we were going to make a second craft. I really loved the paper plate Hibernating Bear Craft from Still Playing School that I shared on my Hibernating Animals Round Up.

These were quite simple to make, though the preparation is a bit tricky. 

You will need:

2 paper plate per project

Brown construction paper

Black construction paper

Medium googly eyes

Brown paint

Black marker

Cotton balls and clothespins for applying the paint. 

Scissors

Glue
Metal paper fasteners

An adult needs to cut out the circles for the eyes on the top paper plate prior to the child painting it. This was the tricky part. I also cut the edge ridges off of the bottom paper plate. I cut out brown ovals for the snouts, half ovals for ears, and black rounded-triangles for noses. 

The children painted both of the paper plates and then we set them to dry.

When they were dry we attached the facial features and I used the paper fasteners to attach the plate with the eyes cut out to the smaller plate. We then attached the googly eyes and, after spinning the bottom plate 180 degrees, drew on sleepy eyes.

Songs

I took my "Did You Ever See a Polar Bear?" song, and changed the words to a brown bear that was hibernating. Of course, the children love the "Did You Ever See a Polar Bear?" song, so we did sing that first. You can find the words to that song in any of my Arctic Animal Fun posts.

Did You Ever See a Brown Bear?

(To the Tune of Did you Ever See a Lassie?)

by Karen Waide

Did you ever see a brown bear

a brown bear, a brown bear

Did you ever see a brown bear

Sleeping til spring?

Sometimes he's snoring,

And sometimes he's yawning.

Did you ever see a brown bear

sleeping til spring?

Motions to go with first verse.

Shrug shoulders with hands raised as in questioning for the first three lines.

Fold your hands together with flat palms and place them to the side of your tilted head.
After singing "yawning" pause to make a big yawn and tap your mouth with your hand.

Go back to shrugging and then place hands at the side of your head again.

They're Going to Hibernate

(to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell)

by Karen Waide

They're going to hibernate

They're going to hibernate

hi ho the derry-o

They’re going to hibernate

March in place.

The bear is in the cave

The bear is in the cave

hi ho the derry-o

The bear is in the cave

Arch your hands above your head, joining fingertips, making it look like a cave.

They'll sleep all winter long

They'll sleep all winter long

hi ho the derry-o

  

They'll sleep all winter long

Fold your hands together with flat palms and place them to the side of your tilted head.

Stop by next week for our lesson on the hibernating dormouse.

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