Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? - Shelf Activities

Busy week on our shelves for this unit!  Stocked full of fun learning ideas to help E practice her color recognition and to introduce shapes.  Watch the video below to see these activities in action:

Brown Bear Brown Bear Felt Board

Okay so this isn't really a felt 'board' because I haven't found the right material yet.  this is just a piece of craft felt.  I printed and laminated the Brown Bear characters and stuck a prickly side of a velcro closure to the backs.  As I read the book, E puts the correct animal on the felt sheet.  Then at the end of the book as I point to all the animals the children see, she points to the corresponding animals on her felt board.  So cute, and a great way to invite non-reading children to participate in a story.

File Folder Puzzle

The printable for this activity came from here.  I printed out the puzzle pieces, and a slightly larger corresponding color of construction paper, laminated both, glued the construction color pieces to a file folder and stuck velcro tabs to the the backs of the animals, and to one side of the construction paper.  The object is for E to first, correctly decide where each animal goes (ie.  black sheep goes on the black construction paper) then to put the pieces together so that the animal is whole.

Puzzles

Melissa and Doug Shape Sorting Clock - For working on our shapes

Melissa and Doug Mickey Mouse Color and Shapes Puzzle - I love this puzzle for working on shapes and colors, plus, it's pretty easy and a great dexterity tool.

Dry Erase Shape Tracing 

This shape tracing page is from a preschool workbook.  We are using our finger to trace the shapes, as well as practicing with the dry erase marker.  E only just turned two so she definitely doesn't have much control over the marker, so that's why we are also practicing with our fingers.

Counting Bear Pattern Sheet

I have seen these all over Pinterest and thought I would save the ink and make my own.  I traced a quarter to make the circles all the same size and colored them in with markers.  I made 9 pattern cards.  This is a good beginners activity for counting.  If I asked E to count out 3 bears, she wouldn't be able to do it, but she understands that each circle gets a corresponding bear.  So after each circle gets a bear, we practice counting how many bears there are on each card.

Pattern Page

Printable from this pack.  Pretty self explanatory, finish the pattern with the tiles.

Color and Shape Button Match

This is already a huge hit with E!  These Mickey Mouse color/shape cards are from the Dollar Tree and the shape buttons are from Hobby Lobby.  I made sure to pull out only the cards and buttons that have matches.  E has to match the buttons to the card.  This is really good practice because she does know a lot of her colors and will often go to pick up the correct color but not the correct shape.  She's done really good at correcting herself though when she puts it on the card and sees that the button doesn't match.

Color Wheel

From the same printable packs as above.  I colored the ends of clothespins to match the animals.  E is working on her color recognition and fine motor skills with this activity.

3-Part Cards

Of course, one of our staples for all our units are the 3-part cards.  These came from the same printable packs as above.  We are working on our two word phrases with these cards to make them a bit harder this week, so 'blue horse' and 'green frog' etc.

Popsicle Stick Pattern Page

These are a great busy bag activity!  I printed the popsicle stick pages and laminated them back to back to take up less space in my bag when we go to out.  E is working hard on her dexterity by trying to place the sticks directly on top of the patterns.  They are slippery suckers on the laminate!  Printable can be found here.

Bear Sizing

Put the bears in order from smallest to largest, and largest to smallest! 

Color Matching Pegs

This is such a surprising hit with E!  She LOVES taking the pegs out and putting them back in.  Idea and tutorial are from here.

Stringing Rainbow Beads

Sorting the beads by color was the first step, then E practiced stringing pony beads onto the pipe cleaners.  For an added bit of fun, I then shaped them into a rainbow.

Additional Books for the Week + Interactive Storytelling

For each unit we are also reading additional books that correspond to our theme.  Freight Train by Donald Crews, is such a simple book with lovely illustrations.  I used these colored flashcards that I made out of construction paper and E practiced lining them up with the colored train cars as I read the book.

We also enjoyed Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh.  I found this fun printable pack here.  I only printed the mice and the paint jars and paint puddles.  I used them like puppets to put on the story as I read the book.  E loved this because as I turned each page, she could help me 'tell' the story by seeing which color came next and put out the correct puppet.  So much fun! She has been requesting to do this again and again all week!

Hope this gave you some inspiration for color related shelf work for your toddlers.  It's only one week in and E has learned all the color names!  Can't wait to show you all our St. Patrick's Day artwork and slime activity!