I was excited to try out this idea today that went with our B is for Bear theme. The animal printables are made to correspond with the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear (which we have 2 copies of) and the idea is to color them, cut them out and attach popsicle sticks, which transform the animals into puppets to use as you read along with the book.
Kanyon helped me color the animals.
I cut them out and taped them to the popsicle sticks (which I've had for years from kid crafts, just collecting dust in the craft dresser).
I hunted through all of our toy boxes and found a stuffed animal matching the animals that are featured in the book, not all of them matched the color (ex:we had a yellow cat, not purple as mentioned in the book), but for the purpose of teaching a one-year-old, it worked great for an extra hands-on learning experience.
I let him play with the stuffed animals and the book by himself before I tried to direct his attention to the puppets and going page by page.
We read the book as I handed him each puppet that matched the page. He LOVED it!
Kisses for the Red Bird.
After we read the book with the puppets a few (more like 5 times) I gathered each and every animal named in the book that I could find, no matter the color or size. We matched up the animal families and sat them next to the page they belonged to in the book. Kanyon absolutely loved all of this. Kept him entertained for a very long time.
Here are our finds, in order of the book...
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?
I see a Red Bird looking at me. Red bird, Red bird, what do you see?
I see a Yellow Duck looking at me. Yellow duck, yellow duck, what do you see?
I see a Blue Horse looking at me. Blue horse, blue horse, what do you see?
I see a Green Frog looking at me. Green frog, green frog, what do you see?
I see a Purple Cat looking at me. Purple cat, purple cat, what do you see?
I see a White Dog looking at me. White dog, white dog, what do you see?
I see a Black Sheep looking at me. Black sheep, black sheep, what do you see?
I see a Gold Fish looking at me. Goldfish, goldfish, what do you see?
The end of the book goes on to name the teacher and children, we just skimmed through that part, just focusing on the animals. After reading the book enough times for me in one day, I made up a couple more things to do with the puppets that we had created.
First, I got out the Blue Blanket, Balls from the Box, and we matched up the animals to their color, followed by counting.
Last thing we did was give the animals a Boat ride...
Kanyon is really into all of the pull toys we have. He finally figured out how to hold onto the very end of the attached string and make the toys follow him around. He went back and forth through the house with his Pirate Ship full of animals at least ten times.
And before lunch, the animals were whisked away in a Blue Boat before being torn off of their popsicle sticks, and hurriedly rescued by Mommy who put them up in a safe spot to use another time. Very easy, toddler-approved, successful craft!
