1-2-3 Come Practice Shapes With Brown Bear And Me

Brown Bear Brown Bear is one of my students' all-time favorite stories.

With that in mind, I designed a super-fun Brown Bear's Silly Nose packet.

It's chock full of cute, brown bear craftivities & games, which practice the following shapes: (3D) sphere, cone, cube & cylinder; plus (2D) circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle, hexagon, pentagon, octagon, rhombus, trapezoid, star, heart & crescent.

The packet includes:

* Pocket chart cards
* A large and small "Bear's Shapely Nose" slider craft, which is also a quick, easy & fun way to whole-group assess.

* Whole-group graphing extensions
* Bookmark writing prompt
* 4 worksheets (graphing, attributes, spatial directions, shape words)

* "Spin & Graph" game.
* "Roll & Color" dice game.

* 3 sets of "Memory Match" or "I Have; Who Has?" game cards.

* "Pin the Nose on the Bear" game.
* "Brown Bear What Do You See?" whole-group chant activity, with different shaped noses, a poster & pocket chart chant cards. 

I have two featured FREEBIES for you today. Both have a shape theme as well. 

The first one is a set of 2D shape posters. The 2nd is a matching set of 3D posters.  I hope you find them useful. 

Well that's it for today. I imagine, like most of you, my summer is flying by, with still so much left to do. 

Wishing you a productive and fun-filled day; and hoping you have lots of relaxing moments.

1-2-3 Come Do Some Brown Bear Activities With Me

One of my all-time favorite books is Brown Bear Brown Bear. It's great for emergent readers, a super way to practice colors, and perfect for sequencing.

With that in mind, I designed a variety of Brown Bear-themed activities, and will feature 3 on today's blog.

First up is a Brown Bear Literacy Game Card packet, with 23 sets of playing cards to help practice a variety of standards.

The packet includes 2 sets of clip art character cards, with 2 sets of real photograph cards, so that students can match real to pretend, or real to real, or pretend to pretend. There’s also a set of character word cards.

Besides matching games, students can sequence the character cards in correct story order, or put them in alphabetical order, as well as sort the cards by color, or spatial directions of the picture. i.e. looking left, looking right, or looking forwards/front.

I’ve included 3 different sorting mats for these independent center activities.

So that children can make their own “Brown Bear Character Matching Game”, black & white patterns are also provided

Later, these can be sequenced in appropriate story order and stapled, to make an Itty Bitty booklet as a fun way for children to retell the story to their family.

Besides the smaller set of character cards, there's also a larger set in both color & BW, plus a matching "cut on the dashed line to make a puzzle” set of cards.

There are also ordinal number cards, ordinal number word cards, paint splat color cards, colorful bear cards, and color word cards to provide even more game options, which can be done as an independent center or played with a partner.

Another fun thing you can do with the cards is use them while you're reading the story.  Choose whichever sets you like, then pass them out to your students.

When you get to that part in the story, the children holding those cards bring them up and place them in a container, or put magnet dots on your story telling set of cards, so that children can place them in correct sequential order on your white board.

Play an "I Have; Who Has?” game. i.e. “I have the red bird, who has the red color card, or the red word card or the real picture card?" or practice sequencing the story by playing the  "What's Missing Flip?”  game. Directions are included in the packet. 

Next up are two Brown Bear packets that practice sequencing and retelling a story standards. One of the options is my ever-popular slider craftivity.

There are several bear options. I’ve included a large, full-page pattern for teachers, as well as a smaller, 2-on-a-page pattern for your students.

Children color the story characters on the “slider strip” according to the colors in the book, then cut and glue it together.

As they pull on the end of the “slider” the various pictures go through the bear’s “tummy window”, so that children can take turns retelling the story to a partner or reading buddy, then take Brown Bear home to share with their family, once again practicing these standards.

Storytelling sliders are also an easy & interesting way to assess comprehension.

I’ve also included a color as well as BW “Here’s What Happened…” writing prompt worksheet, as another way to check comprehension, plus practice sequential writing. (Hopefully students will be using a variety of ordinal numbers or other transitions.)

The other option for practicing sequencing and retelling the story is with a story wheel or pie puzzle. 

There are full color patterns to use for centers, as well as a sample to share, plus a black and white pattern, so your students can make their own.

When everyone is done with their story wheel, take a moment to retell the story as a whole group by turning the wheel. 

Besides the wheels, I've also included (BW + color)  "Sequence the Story” Puzzles, which are a quick, easy and fun way to check comprehension as well.

There are also 3 writing prompt worksheets for further reinforcement.

Today's featured FREEBIE is a quickie apple-themed game that not only practices colors & color words, but counting, number recognition & patterning as well.

Well that's it for today.  Thanks for popping in.

A warm summer breeze is calling my name, so it's time to take a much-needed break and unclutter my buzzy brain. 

Wishing you a relaxing and rejuvenating day.

 "It's a smile; it's a kiss; it's a sip of wine...it's summertime." - Unknown