Tot School: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

Kayleigh is 43 months old

After a couple of weeks off because of our recent trip to Michigan, we are back to Tot School.  This week our tot school deviated from our normal routine.  I decided that this week we were going to spend the week only doing Before Five in a Row.

I decided that we would “row” We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.  It was one that we already owned and it’s a family favorite. 

I’m not going to get into the particulars of the program, as my review will be going up really soon, but I will share some of our little add-ins.

We had a bear hunt themed sensory bin.  I saw it on Delightful Learning.  I made few substitutions so I could work with what I had.

*Swishy swashy grass made from foam.

*Deep, cold river:  snack sized ziplock bag with blue paint

*Thick, oozy mud: snack sized ziplock bag with brown paint

*Forest: Trees Toob

*Snow Storm: white pom poms

Cave: craft foam

Bear: from Wild Animals Toob

Family: Fisher Price Little People

Forest Floor: beans

We did some sequencing using these cards from sparkle box.  And we acted out the story with the author while watching this you tube video. 

These activities came from Homeschool Creations ( HC) awesome BFIAR packs.

Pre-writing and a little board game.  We used our Education Cubes with the number inserts as dice.

We used the animal classification cards and searched for the animals in the book.  I have to say that these classification cards, from HC,  are the best that I’ve seen.  If you’re using BFIAR it’s definitely worth the cardstock and ink to print these all out.  I punched holes in the corner and put them on a binder ring.  Kayleigh loves to carry them around.

HC also had a cute prepositional words activity.

We did some more sequencing, from memory, with the nomenclature cards from HC.  Then we used the extra set to do some matching.  She loves any activity that involves the pocket chart.

Since the book is about a family outing, she drew her family. The picture frame sheet came from Homeschool Share.

She practiced cutting using these cutting strips that I made.  I was out of paint samples for her to cut and I saw this idea over at the Adventures of Bear.   She LOVED these.

I also got brave and let her use liquid glue.  I got some tacky glue, because it’s thicker, and gave her this bear sheet that I made.  She put a dab of glue on each dot and then crumbled a tissue square and stick it on the glue.  That was the fur.  She loved this even more than the cutting strips. 

Feel free to download either for your child by clicking on either photo.

                       

We looked at the different illustrations, b&w vs. color, and colored a picture of the cover.  I think I found that at the Scholastic website but I really can’t remember.

We also ate bears and mud for snack on the last day.  That was chocolate pudding and teddy grahams.  We were originally supposed to paint with the mud but we ran out of time because we decided to go on a bear hunt.

We found the bear.

Click the tot school button at the top of the page to see other fun tot activities.