Learning Station - Color Bear Match

The kiddos matched colors with the counting bears.  They also just enjoyed playing with the bears.

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.

Learning Station - Bear Math

The kiddos rolled the die, and put that many bears (Teddy Grahams) into the cave until all their bears where there.  Then they got to roll the die and take the bears out of the cave (subtraction) and eat them.

Learning Station - Hungry Abc Bear

The kiddos took turns either being the hungry bear or the Abc fish.  The bear comes out of his cave and growls that he is super hungry for a __ fish.  (Fill in the blank with a letter.)  The fish of the correct letter swims over to the bear.  Once the bear has eaten all the fish, the kiddos switch places and do it all again.

Learning Station - Bear Count

The kiddos put the numbers in order, then counted out bears for number. They loved playing with the counter bears and they're perfect for our week on bears.

A week on feet & animal tracks

This week we are learning about feet.  Our feet and animal feet.

Circle Time - Toe Count! - We counted our toes.  We had to do a re-count because one kiddo swore he had 11 toes.  Ha!

Journals - One kiddo drew feet in her journal, so stinking cute!

Toenail Painting - Since we are learning about feet, I figured we could do some decorating.  Ha.  

Shoe Compare - We talked about the jobs different shoes have.  We looked at the different structures of shoes and wondered which would be best for which job.  We investigated the tread as well.

 Then we tried them out.

Footprints - We headed outside to create some painted footprints.  The kiddos painted the bottom of their foot, we made a print then they got to run across some paper and finally the wash off.

The water from our "washing off" was running down the edging of the lawn.  One kiddo  created a bridge with his feet for the water to run under.

Foot X-Ray - We looked at a few x-rays and how the bones were placed, then we tried making our own...

These x-rays are from the youngster class:

Here is an x-ray from the preschooler class:

Mail Center - The kiddos rediscovered the mail center today.  They were having a grant time stamping and mailing things.

Jumping Feet Game - I found these fabulous craft foam feet at the dollar store.  I laid them out for the kiddos to hop from one set of footprints to another.  After a couple of hops the feet got all askew, but that made the game even better!

 

The second half of the week we are focusing on animal feet and their tracks.

Hunting for Animal Tracks - The kiddos each got their own tracks paper.  I "hid" tracks all around the preschool.  Then the kiddos went searching for them.  When they found a track, they had to identify it on their paper.  If they weren't sure which track it was, they were to look at the letters of the name to match them.  They did great!

 

Bear Caves - We made caves and then created a habitat for our bear to live in.  We talked about the need for food (fish, berries, honey).  As the kiddos worked, I glued their pom pom bears together.

Mouse Paint - We love this book.  Last week one of the kiddos asked if we could mix colors like the mice do.  I thought that was a great idea and it fit perfectly with our week on feet since the mice mix the colors with their feet.

We used Q-Tips for our mouse feet.  The kiddos enjoyed dancing their Q-tip mouse feet in the colors and then mixing them.  I always love the excitement and surprise they have as the new color emerges.

Learning Station - Abc Hungry Bear

This bear LOVES to eat fish, but only if they are letter fish.  One kiddo got to be the hungry bear and the other kiddo got to be the fish.  (They switched half way through the alphabet.)  The bear would growl and say something like "I'm hungry for a G fish!".  The fish would find the correct letter and swim it over to the bear to eat and put back in the puzzle. 

I used the bear and cave from our activity yesterday.