Glad To Be a Gladden: "We're Going on a Bear Hunt"

I love this book! Who doesn't?! I could not wait to read this book and accompany the interactive story with such fun activities!

First - my FAVORITE thing we did - Went on a BEAR HUNT!!! Like, what else would we do?!
I set up an obstacle course in our back yard that followed the story.

1. Tall Grass - I used $0.97 green pool noodles from wal-mart and cut them in half. I used our camping tent stakes and hammered those into the ground in a bit of a wavy path pattern. I slid the noodle halves over the stakes - tall wavy grass! I also laid some noodles down in between on the footpath that my daughter would have to navigate over a bit. She loved this and also wanted to build with the noodle halves. Awesome!

2. Cool Deep River - A kiddie pool filled with water. Super easy, right?!

3. Mud - Another kiddie pool (a smaller one) filled with mud we dug up in the backyard. We live on a small lake so we pulled our mud from the water's edge making it very "squelch-squerch" worthy!

4. Dark Forest - I had saved in preparation several of my large amazon cardboard boxes so that I could build a forest. By this time, my daughter was awake (I got a very early start!) and she wanted to help! She got to help assemble the dark forest. There were tall cardboard boxes, brown packing paper, and green crepe paper taped to hang down as she passed through.

5. Snow Storm - This one was probably one of my daughter's favorites. For several days I struggled to figure out how I was going to make this one happen. Then I came up with this: All purpose white flour on paper plates on little lawn tables, a portable fan, AND spray canned whipped cream! MESSY fun and my daughter could not get enough of the whipped cream. She finished the obstacle course and barely could detach herself from the can! Haha! We were dusty white head to toe!

6. Bear Cave - For this I set up one of our collapsible pic-nic tables and two patio chairs. We happen to have dark brown bedding so I put this and a brown fuzzy blanket over the table and chairs to make a dark cave. Inside, I placed her stuffed black bear!

Ellie, my daughter, wore her binoculars and ported her flashlight with her.

That was our main event. We did several other smaller activities as well to engage with the book, play, and learning.

Bear Face with Mud Paint:
We did an art project where we painted with mud! We made a bear face.
Supplies: Googly eyes, black construction paper, scissors, glue, dixie/solo cups, paintbrushes, food dye or tempura paint, paper.

So I let Ellie use her scissors and cut the black construction paper for a nose to go on the bear's face. I totally let her do this 100% solo. She managed to cut out a piece and then she wanted to keep cutting so she gave the nose some fringe, haha! The idea in this was to let her explore with scissors, strengthen her hands, and scissors skills on her terms. We set this to the side. Next, we went to dig for mud! Luckily it had recently rained so we had plenty. However; if no mud, the obvious solution is to make some by using the hose! And do take time to hope in some puddles and get messy! We used 4 colors of food dye therefore; we had 4 separate cups to put mud in. Not much is necessary. Then, once the mud was collected, Ellie put as much food dye as she desired to squeeze in each cup. One color per cup of mud. Then she had a paintbrush for each cup. She stirred up the colorful mud with her paintbrush and went to town making a bear face. I feel like this part is very interesting because all kids will approach this differently. Will they go into deep detail? Will it be more abstract like my 2 year old's? It doesn't matter, just let your child paint with mud and create their bear face. The mud dried quickly which was awesome. We were able to move on to the next step! Ellie had a glue stick because her squeeze glue was out (squeezable glue is so awesome for developing hand strength in toddlers which will help with handwriting later down the line!). She used her glue and placed her googly eyes and her little pre-cut nose where she wanted. Voila!

Counting Bears:

Everybody knows about the colorful little math bears, right? You can get them on Amazon. Ellie loves to play with them, group them, and make stories with them. We did a few different activities.

First, we counted with them. Ellie understands how to count, but learning the number by visual and knowing her number is something I wanted to emphasize in a playful way. I printed out some bears with numbers on their bellies. I went up to 10. Then Ellie simply counted as she gave each number the appropriate amount of bears. She liked asking me what number was which and having her bears travel their journey to their "number home."

Another activity with the bears was to group them by color, then count how many were in each group. Then, make patterns and try to figure out what comes next in the pattern.

The final activity we did with these counting bears was to go on a bear hunt for them in....OOBLECK!!

Making Oobleck:

1. 1, 16 oz jar or box of corn starch.

2. Approximately 1 cup of water....but this can very. My advice is to add water to the oobleck bit by bit, stir, and add as needed to get desirable goopy like substance. You should be able to pick it up with your hand and then it will start falling through slowly. You can even use food dye if desired for added fun. We mix ours in a "play tray" which is nothing more than an old rusted cooking tray that I decided to re-purpose rather than throw out.

We added the bears and they got a little hidden and stuck in the oobleck. So, we took a mini bear hunt to find the bears in the oobleck. And just get messy!

When the oobleck had dried during nap time, we were able to then use Ellie's crab mallet to break up the "concrete" to get the bears out.She put her freed bears into her yellow bucket, then took them to her kiddie pool for a bath with soap and a sponge. Oh she really loved this. The dried oobleck basically just breaks back down into powder easily. She really felt she was on a mission and went to town with this!

Bear Pancakes:

We found a basic pancake recipe on Pinterest. Baker Ellie helped me gather ingredients and supplies. I let her do as much as she wanted and could. She even cracked the eggs which she thinks is so cool! She helps me at the stove as well with obvious safety in place. We made a bear face with two small pancakes as ears, a regular pancake as the face, and chocolate chips placed on top for facial details. This was fun and a great way to start the day.