We're Going on a Bear Hunt

This week we read We're Going on Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen/Helen Oxenbury. To get in the spirit, we went camping for our playtime! The kids really enjoyed it. 

They enjoyed using flashlights inside the tent and roasting marshmallows and hot dogs...until the boys turned the dowels into swords and started fighting bad guys. Unfortunately Luke was the ringleader of this...sigh.

After reading the story, we discussed position words-- over, under, around, through. (These words are used in the story.) Here we acted out those words with the tunnel.

At the tables we made sequencing books.  We looked at all the places the family went looking for the bear-- through the grass, mud, river, forest, snowstorm, cave. We glued pictures of these places on pages in order (to match the order of these events in the story).  Then our preschoolers had a book to take home that they could read/retell! 

On our second day of school that week we talked about different kinds of bears (panda, polar, brown/ grizzly, black) and where they lived.  We looked at photographs from informational books from the library to see what the different places looked like where these different bears lived.  We learned what the word habitat meant.    

Above is an activity we did around habitats.We matched up and glued on different bears with where they live.

Finally, we looked at graphics from things in the story and identified what letter/beginning sound they started with. I knew this would be over their heads but I wanted to get a feel for what letters and if any sounds they knew.  We did this all together as a group and it worked pretty well.  When I emphasized "b, b, b, bear" most weren't really sure what I was talking about but when I said it was like, "b, b, b, Blake" a few got it.   They knew Blake started with B. When I said, "Yes! B is what starts in Blake and bear, " they all easily found the letter b and were able to circle it.  

Thanks to homeschoolcreations.com for resources. I wish I had written down the name of other site I used in my preschool prep for this week and the following but I can't remember now. Darn. I'll have to remember that for next time!