Get busy with the letter b

I hope you enjoyed lots of letter Aa activities last week - if you missed that post, see it here.  Now let's get busy with the letter Bb!  There are SO MANY great things you can do to reinforce the connection between the letter B and the sound |b|: ride bikes, blow bubbles, bathe baby dolls, bake bread and more!  There are so many in fact, that I'm going to break this week up into 2 blog posts - are you ready to get started?

Activity #1  Bake bread.  

Yum!  If you have access to a bread machine it is super easy to make bread, but even if you don't, it's worth the time!  After you get online and find a recipe that appeals to you, you and your little one will do a lot of math as you prepare your dough: measuring teaspoons and tablespoons of ingredients, counting in cups of flour, and don't forget the real life skills of scooping and pouring. I've baked bread literally hundreds of times with children as young as 2.5, and the trick is to let them help however they can.  You probably don't want to have them measure and pour cups of water - how much would make it into the dough, and how much would spill?  Some things are too heavy for little hands, and some measurements need to be relatively precise.  

What to do?  Hold their hands in yours and help them scoop teaspoons of ingredients, then let them dump it in. 

Have them rest a measuring tool on the edge of the mixing bowl, and you pour liquid ingredients into that, then they dump it in.

Count scoops out loud together.  

If you're using a bread machine, show them which button to push to start it, and hold the lid open and watch it go for a minute.

 If you're kneading by hand, share the dough with them and let them knead for as long as they can - if you're talking about the bread, the sticky feeling of the dough, how you want to eat it when it's done, they'll hold out longer - and strengthen their hands as they do!

Once you've got the bread started, consider taking a close look at a piece of bread together.  Does your child notice all the bubble holes in the bread?  That's what makes it light and fluffy to eat!  

Yeast is the ingredient that makes the bubbles, and it needs warm liquid to do it.  If you put a little yeast in some warm water in an empty bottle, add a pinch or two of sugar, then stretch a balloon over the bottle, you'll trap any gas the yeast makes. 

It will probably take about as long as baking the bread does - so it's great to do these things at the same time!

Of course the best part of baking bread is eating it (smelling it cook is a close 2nd)!  Still, make sure you save a little for the next activity.

Activity #2: Teddy bears picnic

Bread isn't the only food that starts with the letter B - there's bananas, berries, bologna, broccoli... enough to make an excellent teddy bears picnic!  I like to read the book, but you can also listen to the song on YouTube.com, and then pack your basket with food that starts with B, grab your favorite bear(s) and book(s) and head to the backyard to enjoy your picnic! 

Activity #3: Go on a Bear Hunt

I learned this song / game first from Dr Jean's song, then later found the book and story retelling by Michael Rosen, and later still the version from The Learning Station.  My favorite is the book - and seeing the author tell it is fantastic!  However you learn it, going outside and pretending to go on a bear hunt is FUN!

While you're outside for your bear hunt, take a little time for:

Activities 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8: Bounce balls, bathe baby dolls, ride bikes, blow bubbles, and observe bugs!

That's more than enough for one blog post - but come back on Wednesday for a second installment of letter Bb activities!

Brrrrrr! Chilling with Polar Bears

The last time I wrote about polar bears I found very few children's books to include in my post.  This time I found a LOT, and plenty of songs and rhymes too. 

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I absolutely fell in love with Sea Bear!  This beautiful new book couples stunning illustrations with some of the most poetic language you'll find - and it's simple enough for young children to understand and connect with.  It starts, 

"Polar bears are patient beasts, as patient as glaciers.  We know how to hope and how to wait.  I learned to be patient long ago from my polar bear mother - "

The story follows a polar bear as it paddles across open ocean, searching for ice or land to stand on.  As the journey goes on, you and your little ones will find yourself aching for land along with the polar bear.  Without ever mentioning conservation, this book absolutely lends itself to further conversation about it.  The text and illustrations show many other Arctic animals along the way, from orca and seals, to narwhal, walrus and sharks.  I cannot recommend it highly enough!

This book also provides a perfect lead in for talking about how polar bears are insulated against the cold by their blubber and fur.  Making a blubber glove to insulate little hands from ice water isn't difficult - and there are instructions for it in this previous post.

If you're reading to young children, you'll also love Polar Bears!  Like the other books in this series, it couples beautiful photographs with simple but meaningful text.  Each 2 page spread includes just 1 - 2 sentences about polar bears, which are closely tied to the photographs.  The close text and picture connection is perfect to support emergent readers as they retell or read the pages.  My teacher heart also appreciates the table of contents at the beginning, the labeled picture of a polar bear, and the vocabulary page in the back of the book.  I would absolutely use this book with preschool, kindergarten and first grade.

If you want a take home reader about polar bears, check out this craft and booklet I created.  Like Polar Bears (above), each page includes 1-2 simple sentences about polar bears, but with black and white line drawings it's suitable to make a copy for each child to have their own.  (The finished crafts also make a very impressive bulletin board!)

Polar Bear Night and the companion book  Polar Bear Morning are also lovely for young children!  Once again the text is simple and short, and the linocut pictures are easy to see from a short distance - important if you're using it for a story time with a big group.  These books also include other Arctic animals, which I think is important for helping children build their schema of the Arctic.  


I've written before about including tangram puzzles in my teaching, and of course I have a puzzle for polar bears!  This little sweetheart is part of my Polar Tangram set, which makes it easy to incorporate some math learning along with our polar fun.

All my tangram puzzles include the shape outline form so my youngest children can manipulate the shapes to match the picture, and a colorful picture version that offers far fewer clues.  I've used these with children aged 3 - 8 and their parents, and it's amazing how engaging and challenging they can be for all ages.

My kiddos also enjoyed Please Bring Balloons.  This lovely fantasy story isn't about polar bears per se, but features a beautiful carousel bear that comes to life and transports Emma to a carousel bear rumpus!  I think the only other children's book with a "rumpus" is Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, and I can see turning on kid friendly music and having a rumpus of our own after reading this book.  This book also makes me want to get out polar bear shapes and a variety of craft materials for children to make their own carousel bears.

If you're like me, just reading about something isn't enough - you want to sing and dance and create and extend the learning, right?  I went looking and found some adorable songs and rhymes to share with you, and I have one of my own to share too. 

I wrote this little song a few years ago because so many children (and adults) don't realize that polar bears and penguins don't live in the same place.  Penguins live south of the equator, mostly in the Antarctic, and polar bears are north of the equator, in the Arctic.  Click on the picture to download a printable song page, or click here to hear me sing it on YouTube.com.

 I also found these on YouTube.com :

Here's Grizzly bears are big and brown (with verses about grizzlies, polar bears and teddy bears) from JBrary,
and
Rachel Rambach has an original song and motion rhyme Polar Bear.


For a polar bear variation on Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, check out the Johnson County Library blog, and check out Storytime Hooligans for a beautiful felt and rhyme.

I want to end today's post with a few more book recommendations.  I've focused on books I use for story times with young children, but there are many more lovely books out there!

 

 

Until next time,

Paula

Polar Bears

It seems to me that there are two great times to learn about polar animals: in the winter, when they come to mind along with snow and ice, and in the summer time, when the idea of cooling off sounds lovely.  We've done both, and either way, the children love it!

You surely know by now that children's books are a huge part of my planning and teaching!  I try to also include both fiction and non-fiction.  While it's more traditional to tell our little ones stories, I've found that they're very interested in learning how their world works, and find non-fiction fascinating too.

I love to make this cute polar bear craft with my youngest kiddos, but for my first graders I'd add the non-fiction booklet to it too.  Either way, these sure look cute for a display!

We love to do hands on activities!  Here we are, exploring the idea of the arctic ocean, using killer whales, seals, polar bears, Alaskan crabs and more.  Do you see the ice cubes in the second picture?  Some of our animals like to get out on the ice, and float along or rest for a bit.  (Some of our friends like to play with ice and water when it's hot outside too!)

We often make hand prints or foot prints to go along with our learning themes, and polar bears are no exception.  We even made narwhal prints, and watched an awesome video about narwhals!

Learning to read sight words is an important part of kindergarten and first grade,  so I made this sight word game for us to practice with.  (It includes cards for letter learners, and PP, P and 1st grade sight words, so it's pretty flexible. Who wouldn't want to help those baby bears get to their momma, right?

I've found a lot of children - and adults for that matter - don't realize that polar bears and penguins don't share the ice.  Polar bears live in the Arctic, near the north pole, and penguins (mostly) live in the Antarctic, near the south pole.  Here's a little song I wrote to help the children remember the difference: 

Download it free by clicking on the link or the picture!  If you have a map or globe in your classroom, have a child point to the correct location as you sing each verse.

While you're reading and singing the song, how about some more facts about polar bears and other arctic animals?  I laid them flat for a picture, but they work really well in a pocket chart (but pocket charts don't photograph well, with all the reflections off the plastic).

I like to use sentence to picture matching activities as a literacy center, and most of my students are really good about working with the materials.  Still, sometimes we need to show written work, or have some kind of accountability for the students, so they all come with follow up worksheets.  Here's one of them:

Another fun, hands on sensory activity to do is to build with ice cubes.  You can certainly use plain old regular ice cubes, chances are good that you have some on hand, or if not, you can buy a bag of ice at any grocery store or gas station.  I like to make over-sized ice cubes, using whatever empty containers are available and headed for the recycling bin.  It's amazing how much fun giant ice cubes are as a building tool, and they take a nice long time to melt too.

If you're building with ice cubes, you might also want to show the children a video of how an igloo is built!  I like this one.  After you watch this, be prepared to see a lot of building going on - and have some nice large blocks on hand.

We've also explored how polar bears thick layer of fat, or blubber, helps to insulate them - you can see that post here.

So what other activities do you like to do when you're learning about polar bears?  I'd love to know! 

Paula

P.S. Stop back by next week to see how we like to learn about penguins.

Sleepy Bears

I've been pulling down books for January - you know, all the fun polar animal books, snowmen stories, books about hibernation... winter themes!  As I gathered my books, I noticed I have a LOT of books about sleepy bears.


Here are a few favorites:




I LOVE this one by Mem Fox!  Mother bear prepares her six little cubs for bed, telling each one their own bedtime story, custom made for them.  This is a sweet story that young children will adore, and will surely relate to at least one of the cubs (princess, explorer, acrobat, dessert lover, pirate and baby).  There is a very satisfying surprise at the end, and your little ones will be calm and ready for sleep by the end of it.

When I read Sleepy Bears, I am reminded of something Mem Fox wrote in Reading Magic, a book she wrote for adults, about reading to and with children:

     "We can achieve great things emotionally if the last line is a definite dismissal, a
     farewell.  As we say it, we're releasing our listeners from their contact with us.
     Without this drawn-out final line, our listeners will feel an uncomfortable sort of
     incompleteness.  A rapid finish feels oddly wrong.  A slow finish is an absolutely
     delicious experience.  Both teller and listeners find themselves in a state of bliss,
     akin to "living happily ever after."
                                                                                                          (Chapter 6, Reading Magic)





You probably know Frank Asch from the classic Happy Birthday, Moon.  His books are just right for the preschool crowd, very sweet and loving, and this is no exception.  When mother bear tells baby bear it is time to hibernate in a cave, he has a difficult time with the change to his sleep routine - and if you have young children, you can relate!  Mother bear is patient and loving, and solves the problems that are preventing her little one from sleeping.



I've mentioned Denise Fleming's books before, and I'm sure I will again!  Once again she has paired exquisite illustrations with text that is almost poetic, and created a perfect children's book.  Bear - and the other animals in the story - notice various signs that winter is approaching, and that it is time for them to hibernate.  There is a lot of science woven into this lovely piece of fiction, and you could use it to teach children about seasons, hibernation, or woodland animals.  I used to use this one when we learned about the letter L, because there is a ladybug in the story who settles under a log to rest.  We made a letter L craft that went beautifully with the concept.  Here's a picture:

Surely you've met the Bear books by Karma Wilson?  There are several books in the series, each of them as much fun as the next.  We recently enjoyed the Christmas version, Bear Stays Up For Christmas, at our library story time.  The children loved the story and illustrations!


With all these sleeping bear stories, I was inspired to make a cute sleepy bear craft too.  (There's a mini book about animals that sleep in winter, hidden under his nose!)

Next time I'm going to show you some of my favorite polar bear books!  I'd love to hear about the stories your students love to hear too - please let me know in the comments!


***I do not use affiliate links, and am not reimbursed in any way for providing links.  I've chosen to link these products in order to make it easier for you to find them, if you wish.  There are many, many retailers that will be happy to help you locate these books, the links are merely suggestions.***