We're Going On a Bear Hunt {BFIAR}

Our row for this past week was We're Going On a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.

This has long been a family favorite so it was both familiar for the kids and exciting in that they got to explore aspects of it further!

I purposely picked it for the first week of school for that very reason!

Here's what we did:

Taitum sorted bears according to color. Piper used them for counting practice.

After several readings of the story, they put these sequence cards in the correct order.

The girls showed me that they understood "over, under, through" by placing their bears in the appropriate place when I gave a direction.

Since the story involves a family, we discussed different kinds of families.

Then Piper drew a picture of her own family.

Lately she has been drawing people by making a letter P first and then filling in the person's features.

I especially like her drawing of Taitum with all the crazy hair!

We played a bear hunt game which they LOVED!

Piper is really getting into board games and such lately so this was right up her alley!

A while ago, I came across a great idea of turning "We're Going On A Bear Hunt" into a sensory play session.

(You can check it out at make, do & friend.)

We ended up doing our own version of this.

I mostly got the girls to build it although I had prepared some chocolate pudding for the mud and ice cubes for the snow beforehand.

The day we did this, I decided to put those items in Ziploc bags since I was running a fever and dealing with a pretty severe headache.

I just did not have it in me to do the clean up that would result from letting the girls get their hands in the stuff!

They still had a great time!

They came up with grass from the yard for the grassy field, a pan of water for the river, plastic trees from their dinosaur box for the forest and a container with a panda bear puppet in it for the cave and bear.

They also hauled out their dollhouse for the home that the family runs back to at the end and used the dolls that belong to it for the characters of the story!

I read the story and they acted it out with our little set up!

Another day, the girls made their own bears by painting paper plates and adding "One shiny wet nose! Two big furry ears! Two goggly eyes!" and had great fun roaring "IT'S A BEAR!"

Finally, Piper narrated the story for me:

It's about a family that goes on a bear hunt walk. They find a bear and go "AHHHH!" and close the door and go under their covers."

Although not an excellent narration, she surprised me by actually making an attempt at narration whereas she usually just shrugs and says she doesn't know.

I also asked them what their favorite part of the story was:

Piper: "The grass. I like the sound it makes - Swishy, swashy!"

Taitum: "When they go back to bed and say "WE'RE NOT GOING ON A BEAR HUNT AGAIN!"

Once again, we had a fabulous time rowing a Before Five in a Row book!

Next we move on to Play With Me by Marie Hall Ets.

Also, I'll be linking these BFIAR posts up to Delightful Learning's BFIAR link up where you'll find oodles of other ideas from bloggers who use FIAR! 

Well worth checking out! Just click on the button below!