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.

Joining in with other homeschoolers at:

Littles Learning Link Up: February 19, 2019: Egg Carton Bear in a Paper Bag Cave

Each month you will find:

• A seasonal round-up (usually toward the beginning of the month)
• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my early elementary children (including occasional highlight posts where I share how we used ideas that have been linked up here on Littles Learning Link Up).

Each week, I will host a link up, where you can share either what you have been up to recently, or old posts that may go with the theme.  Feel free to link up more than one post.

Each week I will continue to feature a couple of posts from those that have been linked up. 

I hope you will continue to share your wonderful posts, and I hope you will find something new to try with your child(ren).

It would be great for everyone to stop by and visit the other linked-up posts as well. Check them out, leave some comments, pin those that interest you. Let's make this a real party and socialize with each other.

We have started a new unit in the Pre-K co-op class. For the next 3-4 weeks I will be sharing our lessons on hibernating animals.

I will continue to share my Pre-K unit posts on Fridays. However, it is on Tuesdays that I will be sharing the craft that we made. 

Egg Carton Bear in a Paper Bag Cave

You will need:

Brown paper lunch bags (one per project)

Cardboard egg cartons

Cotton balls

Brown acrylic paint

Paint brushes
Small black pompoms

Brown markers

School glue

Black marker

In preparation I cut both ends from several egg cartons, leaving the two cups joined. The middle cups didn't work as well as they had bigger holes. I also cut the cave entrance hole from the lunch bags, and trimmed them down by about 1 1/2 to 2 inches.

We started by painting the egg carton pieces brown.

Then we set them aside to dry while we worked on another project.

After the children came back from gym class we finished our projects.

The children used the brown markers to draw a winter tree outside the cave. Then we glued one cotton ball that had been spread out across the bottom of the lunch bag. 

Then we opened up the lunch bags and added a spread out cotton ball to the bottom of both side panels.

Then we glued the black pom poms to the top of the bears for ears and one in the middle for a nose (which isn't shown in my bear below). We finished the bear by drawing sleeping closed eyes under the ears and a mouth under the nose. Then we glued it into the bottom of the cave.

I then folded the bag down and taped it shut.

Shhh, don't disturb the sleeping bears!

These are the two books we read to go with the projects. I will be sharing more about the other project in my Hibernating Animal Fun post at the end of the week. We made Hibernating Bears out of paper plates, which is one of the projects that was shared on my Hibernating Animals Round Up.

Egg Carton Bear in a Paper Bag Cave

Let's take a look at that review schedule real quick:

Last week I posted my review for the newest Heirloom Audio Adventures release titled, For the Temple. Three of the children have been using the IXL Learning site, which we have a year membership to. That review will be posting this week. We have also been reading the newest books in the Secret of the Hidden Scrolls series. We reviewed the first two books a year or so ago. And I have been working with Harold on math using Singapore's Dimensions Math.

In March I will be sharing reviews for a US Symbols Unit Study from Homeschool Complete, STEM activities from Tied 2 Teaching, and Poetry for the Grammar Stage from Memoria Press

Here are a couple of things I would like to share with you:

Fun With Dr. Seuss Round Up

St. Patrick's Day Shamrock Fun Round Up

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there nine wonderful posts linked up. I will be sharing a randomly selected post and the most clicked on posts.

Please, don't forget to stop by other posts that are linked up. See what catches your eye, stop by, pin the post to a relevant board, and perhaps leave a comment to let the author of the blog know you have been by for a visit. I know I appreciate others commenting and letting me know they have read my posts, so I am sure others do too.

This week's randomly selected post is:

Thaleia from Something 2 Offer shared Spring Tot Trays.

This week's most clicked on posts are:

Tanya from The Natural Homeschool shared The Best Weathering vs Erosion STEM Experiment in the World

Brandy from The Barefoot Mom shared Homeschooling on the Go

Join the Party!

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your young children? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on one of my relevant boards, and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up.

Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our school time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your child, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Monday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

No button currently, and there won't be one until I can figure it out seeing as Photobucket has changed things. Feel free to still share the picture in place of the button. Just link it to my Littles Learning Link Up permalink please.

I am sharing over at

Inlinkz Link Party