The Three Snow Bears

One of our favorite reads during our winter unit has been The Three Snow Bears. It is a retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears set in the Arctic.  Like all of Jan Brett's books the illustrations are wonderful and very detailed - Big Buddy spent a lot of time examining them. :) 

Since the book was a favorite we did a couple corresponding activities. First, we used used contact paper, shaving cream, and watercolors to create our own polar bear families. 

big buddie's family 

supplies needed: water colors, squeegee, contact paper cut into polar bear
shapes, shaving cream, card stock, cookie sheet, news paper 
* i used this template printed at 40%, 35% and 25% for the bears

1- peel off back of contact paper bears and press them on to card stock

*it's very important to that they are secure :)

2- spray shaving cream on pan and use squeegee to
spread evenly

3- cover shaving cream with liquid water colors or food coloring
4- press card stock down on top of shaving cream
5- squeegee off excess shaving cream
6- let dry

mini man's family 

The boys enjoyed the shaving cream so much that once they finished their art project the they got out their polar animals and played with them in shaving cream.

Later, I also showed the boys our bear counters which we sorted by size and color. 

Recently we've enjoyed playing the card game "war" as a family so we also used the counting bears to create a "war" weighing game.  We made cards (you can print them off here) that depicted a number and a size of bear. The players each flip over a card and then put the number of bears (small, medium, or large) into the their side of the scale.  The player whose bears weigh the most wins the round and gets to keep both cards. The player with the most cards at the end wins. 

skills practiced: rational counting, comparing, size, weight, social