Itchy Bear

Personal Social and Emotional

Using a teddy bear as Itchy Bear, talk about how he might have felt when the animals and creatures told him to go away as he was disturbing them when he was trying to itch his back. Ask the children how they feel if someone disturbs them from playing?

Communication and Language

Encourage listening by sharing the story of ‘Itchy Bear’. Encourage conversations about the events and characters.  Set up an Itchy Bear small world scene in a large activity tray, using the story sack characters for Itchy Bear. During play, encourage the children to understand and follow instructions, such as “Can you put the bear on the log.”                                                                                                                       

Physical Development

Using outdoor chalk or brown paint, create a trail of bear prints outside. Can the children skip, hop, crawl, run and jump from one paw print to another?

Literacy

Read the story of ‘Itchy Bear’. As you read the story, draw attention to parts of the book, such as the front cover, and how the book should be handled and used.   Say the rhyme for ‘Teddy Bear Teddy Bear Turn Around’.

Mathematics

Using the sorting bears, ask the children to put them in size order, such as ‘Small, medium, large.’   Count the different size of bears - how many small ones, how many medium ones, how many big ones are there?

Understanding of the World 

What types of bears are there? Show the children pictures of different bears, e.g. Polar bear, Brown bear, Panda, Koala and look at their natural habitats.

Expressive Art and Design

Make paper plate bear heads, paint, glue and stick. Provide apples to print pictures and make an apple tree.

Focused Vocabulary

Bear, itchy, apple, tree, toes, ears, chin, scratch, tawny owl, squirrel.