SHARED By: Ms. Laura, Three’s Teacher at York Avenue Preschool

Our Three’s classroom at York Avenue Preschool has been learning all about winter. We have learned that when the weather gets colder, snow may cover the ground, our days get shorter and all the trees look bare. We have discussed that to stay warm during the winter months, people can live in warm houses and wear warm clothes. They can go to the grocery store and prepare warm food. But, what happens to the animals?

We discussed that animals find a way to do many different, amazing things to get through the winter. Some of them “migrate.” This means they travel to other places where the weather is warmer or where they can find food. To keep warm, some animals grow thicker fur. Some animals “hibernate” for part or all of the winter. This is a special, very deep sleep. To help reinforce what hibernation means, we decided to learn what brown bears do in the winter. We prepared bear caves.

What You’ll Need:

  • Grocery bag
  • Scissors
  • Colored Paper (brown and green)
  • Glue
  • White paint
  • Q-tips
  • Brown tissue paper
  • Tree clippings (optional)
  • Picture of a bear
  • Crayons

What You’ll Do:

  • Cut the brown bag in half by snipping off the end that has the opening (you want the bag to be shorter).
  • Paint the flat side of the bag brown.
  • Cut a semicircle opening on one side of the bag to represent a cave.
  • Create an evergreen tree by cutting a big triangle out of the green paper and a small rectangle out of the brown paper.
  • Glue the brown rectangle (trunk) to the bottom of the green triangle (tree) to make an evergreen tree.
  • Glue it on the side of the bag that does not have the cave opening.
  • Dip a Q-tip into white paint and dot the paint on the brown bag to create a snowstorm.
  • Glue brown tissue paper and tree clippings to the inside of the cave opening to represent the bear “nesting.”
  • Color a picture of a sleeping bear.
  • Make pretend to let the bear eat and prepare to hibernate.
  • Glue the sleeping bear to the inside of the cave and on top of the warm cozy nest.
  • Wish the bear a snug and cozy sleep.

To continue with our bear theme, we sang a song, “Bear is Sleeping.”

“Bear Is Sleeping”

Bear is sleeping, bear is sleeping.
Let it snow, let it snow!
Sleeping all winter, sleeping all winter.
Snug and warm, snug and warm!

Happy Monday!