Bear Snores On is not only a fantastic read aloud it also offers a chance to learn about hibernation and build literacy skills. This read and play is a fun way to work on literacy skills such as storytelling, re-enacting, and understanding the parts of a story.
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Bear Snores On Snack Time
Picture Books about Bears
Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson
This is the featured book for this week’s Virtual Book Club for Kids and it’s one of our favorites. There are a lot of Bear books in this series now but this is the one that started it all and it is the best. This is one of my all-time favorite read aloud books. There is so much potential for dramatic reading here and the story is full of delicious language and the ultimate climactic surprise.
A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker
Another book about a bear and an unwanted visitor – in this case one tiny little mouse. Bear doesn’t like visitors, but mouse isn’t going to give up very easily. Thank goodness because his persistence is the start of a wonderful friendship. The start of another amusing series.
Those Pesky Rabbits by Ciara Flood
Bear lives all on his own in the middle of his own. He is quite content until one day a family of rabbits moves in next door. When the rabbits start knocking on his door to borrow honey, ask for help with wood chopping, and offer to swap books Bear is not happy. A wonderful book about neighbors, kindness, and learning to accept change. The illustrations are the best part of this picture book. They bring to life the hysterical bunnies and the emotional bear in a way that is sure to draw chuckles.
Bear Snores On Snack Time
Story time is definitely better when it comes with a snack. This early drama, literacy activity is based on one our favorite read alouds by Karma Wilson.
Materials
- Copy of Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson
- Tea Cups
- Spoons for honey and stirring
- “Tea” ingredients: warm water, honey, and lemon
- Bowls
- Snack: nuts, seeds and/or popcorn for nut-free alternative
- Stuffed Animals
- Play Tent or Pretend Cave
Set Up
Before hand gather the materials above and make sure you have enough bowls and tea cups for each person.
Lay out the snack supplies near your tent or cave. We used our play tent (this is a similar one) for a “bear cave” but you could also make one out of a sheet and a table.
Activity
This activity is best done when your kids are very familiar with the story because we are going to act it out!
Start by telling your kids you are going to make “honey tea” – which if you are familiar with the story you know is what the animals drink in the cave to warm up.
My kids helped me make our “tea”. We warmed some water (making sure not to make it too hot) and then stirred in lemon and honey. We didn’t use any actual tea, but you can if you wish.
Note: if you’re doing this with a classroom you will want to have the water warmed before hand and then each child could carefully add some honey and lemon to their tea and stir.
Next we mixed some seeds and nuts and craisons together and then scooped some into bowls for each of us and our stuffed friends.
Then we arranged everything in our tent and we re-read Bear Snores On.
The first time through, because this was our first re-enacting experience, I read the story as we acted it out and played the part of the bear. They picked which stuffed animals should play the other parts as we went along. They were thrilled with the idea and quickly caught on to making their animals act out what the characters in the story were doing.
Once we were done, we of course had to do it again.
This time they were both the bear and I did the smaller animal parts.
We again read the book as we acted it out. Older Preschoolers and early Elementary Schoolers might be able to do this without having the actual story read aloud as they go. This however worked well as an introduction to the idea of re-creating a story.
This was a cozy and playful way to build some storytelling and retelling (important literacy skills) into our day.
Read More Virtual Book Club for Kids Posts
More Activities about Bears
Are you a member of the amazing Weekly Virtual Book Club community on Facebook? It is free and fantastic weekly fun. Together a team of co-hosts (including yours truly) share a favorite children’s book and related activities each week. Join our community of over 6,000 creative parents, teachers, and childcare providers!
These are the activities from our team of co-hosts this week! I can’t wait to see what you do with our bookclub book this week.
Literacy Activities
- Bear Cave Alphabet Game from Inspiration Laboratories
- Bear Dreamed of Colors Printable Book to Color from JDaniel4’sMom
- Bear Themed Play Dough Mats from Preschool Powol Packets
Math Activities
- Teddy Bear Ordering and Sorting from Rainy Day Mum
- Printable Bear Counting Activity from The Educators’ Spin On It
- Building Shapes and More Bear Themed Learning from Mama Smiles
- Bear Storytime + Ordering by Size with Free Printables from My Storytime Corner
Science, Technology and Engineering Activities
- Hibernating Bear Craft from Still Playing School
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