We read lots of bear books last week! Here are some of the favorites Sam pulled from our home library book cases. His reading ability has soared over the last few months and he is now keen to attempt chapter books. We do love picture books however, especially at bedtime and he is still very keen for me to read to him, which I am thrilled about.
If you are interested in some of these titles, here are a few Amazon Affiliate links:
One particularly fun read is Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson. It has lively, playful text that seems to skip along from page to page. It is ideal for a shared reading and re-read with concentrated sentence level analysis.
Any of the pages would be perfect to pull a sentence from and take a close look at the language and word choice.
In a cave in the woods, a slumbering bear sleeps through the party in his very own lair.
With this sentence written on display for your learners, ask them:
- what they notice
- which words are nouns/verbs/adjectives/pronouns
- are there any unfamiliar words
- what do they visualize when they hear 'slumbering'
- cover key words like 'cave', 'sleeps' and 'party' and have your students write their own version of this sentence structure to modify the text
I've made a one page craft to accompany these, or any other bear book that you may be reading with your class. It also includes writing pages for you to use when you set a writing task for your students.
This one page craft has a 2D shape focus so you can incorporate some mathematics in your lesson as well. After students have made this craft, encourage them to draw another bear or animals from 2D shapes to extend their learning.
Find this free craft in Google Drive right here: Free Shape Bear One Page Craft
You can find more one page crafts over in our TpT store. They are perfect for busy teachers because
- they can be easily incorporated into theme work
- we have included a great variety of projects in each pack
- the prep is ridiculously fast (just one page per student)
- kids love them and will ask you over and over again for more
- they can be completed independently by students, building confidence with creativity
We hope you enjoy reading some bear stories with your learners!