Take Your Children on a Bear Hunt!
'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury is a gorgeous book with so many possibilities! You an use it to help introduce your children to ideas about exploration, the feel of different textures (grass, mud, water etc.), different types of environments (or habitats) and the different animals that might live their (perfect if you'd like to continue exploring animals like in our Jungle Book ideas and our Elmer ideas, family, friendship and playing (just to name a few).
Once again I encourage you to engage with the text over a week (5 days) so your children can become familiar with it and therefore can become more engaged with it. I've set out ideas for Monday to Friday but it's you and your child's experience so swap and change as you see fit.
Monday
Read the book together and then ask questions about what you read. Who was searching for the bear? How many where their in the family? Can you remember some of the things they had to walk through? Why do you think the bear chased them?
Have your child complete the sentence, ‘If I took my family on a hunt we would look for a _____ because _____’. Get them to draw a picture to go with their sentence.
Tuesday
Read the book again or if you happen to have the version that includes a CD of the story being read, let them listen to it (or see the video below). Ask your child what their favourite part of the story is and why (you can turn this into a writing activity if you like).
Do some story story sequencing using images of those things in the book (This is one option although not actually intended for this purpose). Have your child use the image of the family to follow the journey they take in the book.
Wednesday
Show your child the pages of the book and ask them to tell you the story. Together create a map that shows all the places the family journeyed through to reach the cave with the bear! There are lots of ways you can do this but I really recommend going all out and making an authentic looking map!
A couple of resources you might want to look at are How to Make a Treasure Map which has list of items you’ll need and a video that quite clearly shows you how (but no voice instructions). Another is Drawing a Treasure Map youtube video that takes a slightly different approach and explains the use of hatching which can be quite effective for adding some detail to your map. And finally, Make an Ancient-Looking Map of Neverland has some more ideas you might like to borrow from.
Thursday
Watch the video (see below) of Michael Rosen telling you the story with actions and encourage your child to do the actions as well. Ask your child what they think each different obstacle feels like, eg. grass, mud, water. Go outside and explore! Can you find grass, trees, mud, water and snow? Collect some items and create a kind of collage together where you can glue these items on a piece of paper. Be kind to nature! Try to collect only fallen items from trees etc. When you return home create a ‘cave’ for your child to explore and play with.
Friday
Engage with the story either by reading, listening, having your child tell it or watching the video. Remind your child about the map you made on Wednesday. Ask, do you think we could make puppets to tell the story in a theater show? Have your child draw a picture of the family and bear and colour it in then glue or tap it to a pop stick or provide an outline of a family and bear picture and ask them to colour it in. Make backgrounds and props together and then have your child tell the story using the puppets and changing the backgrounds.
Here are some resources to help you complete this:
Pinterest ideas for making your own puppet theatre
Simple bear puppet using a brown paper bag
How to make puppets kit
Make bear ears! - this site has other interesting resource as well