Going on a Bear Hunt

The letter of the week was Bb, so it seemed like a good time to have bears as our theme. We actually work on all the letters and sounds in morning message, reading time, and writer's workshop, but we choose one letter to focus on each week. Each child is making an alphabet book and we draw and label two things that begin with the letter and then practice writing the letter. We will compile all these pages at the end of the year. We read so many bear stories this week, but a favorite was Going On A Bear Hunt. We also have two different versions of "Going on a Bear Hunt" song. The children love swimming the peanut butter river and eating their way through the candy factory in Dr. Jean's version.

We went back to another favorite book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? We illustrated our own version of the book. The children were amazing artists! We did the pages together as a directed drawing lesson. I gave directions and drew on the Smartboard and the children drew in their books. Their illustrations were so much cuter than mine! We will read the books together one more time next week and then the children will take them home. The children also made a smaller version of the Brown Bear book and that one will go into their book boxes. The book boxes are used during Read to Self time. Each child practices reading from his/her box while Mrs. B and I move around and listen to them read. We practiced using our fingers to point to the first letter of each word by reading some E books on the Smartboard. The children are able to read on their own for about ten minutes now.

We made TLC pictures for the nursery rhyme "Baa Baa Black Sheep". They are hanging in the hall outside our room. A child from another class asked one of my students if they were black dogs. The student replied very indignantly, "No, those are our baa baa black sheep." I had to smile because those sheep are a bit strange looking. We have a really rocking version of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" on a Jack Hartman CD that everyone enjoyed.

Next week we will finish up with bears and start on an apple theme. We will be doing the letter Ss.