Letter B: Bear Finger Painting, Bear Counter Activities (Day 2)

1) Bear Finger Painting: Use brown pudding to finger paint a bear. Here's what you'll need.

• Blank Bear Coloring Page (print from Twisty Noodle)
• Brown Pudding OR Brown Finger Paint 
• Black Marker
• Goggly Eyes

1. Point out the letter B at the top of the page. Have your child trace the letters if he/she is able.
2. Have your child use their finger to paint the bear printable.
3. Once the paint dries, glue on goggly eyes and draw any additional features (nose, mouth, claws, etc.)

2) Bear Counter Activities: My two LOVES these Three Family Bear Counters! They come in six different colors (orange, red, yellow, blue, green and purple) and three different sizes (small, medium and large). I brought them out and was ready to color sort, but my two year old was only interested in playing. So, that's what we did! After some playing time, we did a few of the ideas below. You can buy a less expensive set of Counting Bears from this link, but this set has five colors and are all the same size.

Here's what you can do with these counting bears.

• Color Sorting from Teaching Mama: Sort the bears into their matching circles. You can print the image from the link provided, or it would be easy to make something similar at home. 

• Bear Counting Cards from Creating & Teaching: This is such a great activity to review colors, numbers, one-to-one counting, and comparing! Simply draw a card and place the correct color and number of bears on the dots. Note: We bought a less expensive set of bears that doesn't include orange bears. When we drew an orange card, I taught my almost three that red and yellow make orange, so he could use either color.

• Bear Patterns from The Measured Mom: We are only working on ABAB patterns. They're a little much for my two right now, but I figure I'll keep on doing a few of them until they click. You can print bear pattern strips or you can set the bears up yourself. I always point to the bears and say "red, yellow, red, yellow, red, yellow, red...what comes next?

• Balance Scale & Weighing Bears from Stay at Home Educator: This looks like a fun idea! We haven't talked a lot about weight yet, so this would be a good start for us. You can purchase a balance scale here.

• Letter B Fill: Fill a block Letter B with counting bears. You could also fill numbers, shapes, outline a bear, or so many other options. 

• Measuring Activity from Cutting Tiny Bites: Use the bears to measure how long items are in your house. Count the bears and compare the lengths of different items.

• Size Sorting from Prekinders: Talk about the different sizes of bears. Size sort onto small, medium and big bears. Click the link to print.

• Wash the Bears: We loved washing bears in the tub! We had a few cups & bowls, baby wash for the bubbles, scrubbers and spoons. There was a lot of mixing, pouring, scrubbing, pretend play and hands on learning.

• Bear Shapes: Put the bears into a brown paper sack. Have your child draw a bear and whisper, "That bears favorite shape is... " And have your child place the bear on the correct shape. Click the link to print the shape card (from homeschool creations) below.

• Bear Graphing: This is a great and simple graphing activity for young children. You can print this Bear Graph from The Measured Mom.

• Use them in "Goldilocks & The Three Bears" Story Time. 

• Pretend Play. Use your imagination.