Going on a Bear Hunt - All Week!

This week we are learning about bears and hibernation.  Our letter of the week is Z, as in the sound a bear makes while snoring in its cave.  The book we are using this week is:




Christmas Advent - Santa's Beard - The kiddos put together these cute Santas with really long beards.  Each day the kiddos are to cut off part of Santa's beard.  Great cutting practice and number recognition (with the day's date). 

 Once their Santa was created, they got to cut off the 1 for today, December 1!

Going on a Bear Hunt - We created our own maps that coincide with the book we are learning with this week. 

 We read the story following our maps with Fisher Price People.

Then we decided to use them for our own hunt.  We went through the swishy grass, the river, the mud, the forest, snow storm and finally ended up at the bear cave...

Aaaaah!  They all ran away!  Then we went on the hunt again.  After a few goes, our bear had some treats for us (gummy bears).  Yum!

Circle Time - Our teddy bears helped us with our jobs.

Soap Box Caves - The kiddos enjoyed camouflaging these little caves for their fancy teddy bears. 

I have been saving Dial soap boxes and today I found their purpose!  They made wonderful caves.

 Here are a few finished caves.

Teddy Bear Picnic - Next we enjoyed our picnic.   We ate what bears would eat for snack:  fish (goldfish crackers), berries (fruit loops), apples, teddy grahams.

Fluffy Polar Bears - We talked about the bears of the north.  How they have webs between their toes so they can swim in the water and how their skin is black under their white fur to help them be warm in the sunshine. 

We made our polar bears fluffy by mixing shaving cream and Elmer's glue together.  The bear's ears are those flat, circle facial cotton pads from the Dollar Store.

Science - Dissolving Bears - We decided to see which would dissolve faster:  a teddy graham or a gummy bear!  The kiddos made wonderful observations about the differences between the two, then we popped them in some water and watched.

We found that the teddy grahams started to break apart almost immediately.  Also, they floated, while the gummy bears sank.  After some time we saw that the gummy bears had lots of tiny bubbles all over them.

When it was time to head home, our teddy grahams were pretty mushy, but our gummy bears looked the same.  For better or worse, we are going to continue our experiment all weekend.  On Monday we'll see if the gummy bears changed at all.

Science - Continuation of Dissolving Bears - Our bears sat in water all weekend.  When the kiddos arrived, we noticed that the gummy bears were way bigger than they used to be.  Interestingly our teddy grahams looked about the same.  We nudged them with a stick and they fell apart easily.  Then we nudged the gummy bears and they too came apart.  Weird!

Cup Bear Cave - We made bears who can hide in their cave.  The bear is glued on a craft stick so he can be scootched into and out of the cave.  The stick pokes out the bottom of the cup.  I saw this idea on:  this blog.

Hibernating Bear - One last bear project.  The kiddos got to decide what season it was outside their bear's cave and paint it.