Bears of the World

Bears of the World…

Chances are if you ask your first grader to tell you something about the eight species of bears, you are in for an exciting but long lecture. Our students have learned so much about the habitats, physical characteristics, diets, and geographical locations of bears during this theme. They are now hard at work putting all of this information together in a fun and lively theatrical event we have titled Bear Planet.

While we have spent a great deal of time in Social Studies and Science learning about these interesting animals, we have also been able to incorporate many skills into our studies. Students have been using bear manipulatives to weigh and balance pumpkins. They have been using bears as they navigate complex logic problems. As they have learned theme vocabulary, they have been practicing the skill of alphabetical order. Of course, we have tried to incorporate some of our bear vocabulary into the spelling lists as well. Students have explored nonfiction texts during this theme. They have been able to look at text features of nonfiction texts about bears and compare them to fiction texts. We’ve also used bear facts as we worked on sentence structure. Believe it or not, we have also used this theme to introduce taking notes within reading passages. Students continue to work on reading comprehension, tracking during reading, and handwriting. Who knew we could teach so much within a theme? We did…