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Home : 2002 : January : 31

Bears
By Julianne

I don't know if this is "kick ass" but we just did this activity on bears and I think the kids got some good things from it.

We began by discussing what the weather was like outside. Then I asked them what had happened
to all the animals. We talked about migration, hibernation and adaptation. I showed pictures of different animals and they guessed which adjustment to the weather each animal made. When we got to the bear most knew that bears hibernate (well, they don't really hibernate like other animals do, but for first grade purposes, they do). We talked about the other accommodations they had

to make to prepare for winter. As the students named them we wrote them onto a chart under the heading "What Bears Do In Winter". They came up with things like eating more, growing a heavy coat and preparing a den. Then I asked them if people did these same things. We made a new heading, "What People Do In Winter" We filled in things like staying indoors, wearing heavy clothes, eating hot foods, etc. We did this as a shared writing, then the kids copied it onto a sheet of their own so they could add an illustration.

You could try it as an interactive writing activity where the kids do some of the writing on the chart. Or you could turn it into a Venn diagram activity. Good luck on your evaluation.