We're Going on a Bear Hunt
This was my fourth time in my first grade classroom, and it has been exciting to see the students progress. Today, I noticed the students' willingness to participate and get involved has grown! They feel free to ask questions and explore different, unique ideas more. However, the main lesson I learned from this particular visit was the importance of clear instructions.
We started off our lesson by each drawing a certain locomotive movement from a hat, and then doing that movement as if we were in different environments, like moving through honey or along a sandy beach. I thought it would be fun for the students to each have their own movement, such as marching or skipping or jumping. However, I think for first graders, it may have confused them to have the people around them doing different movements. In the future, I may stick to having them all do the same locomotor movement in order to reduce confusion.
I read with them the book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen. It's a lovely book - one of my favorites from when I was young. It has a beautiful sing-songy cadence with repetition that made it fun for the kids to join in with the different sounds and onomatopoeias. That helped them all stay engaged throughout the readaloud.
We then did some different activities moving through the space as if going through the different environments described in "We're Going on a Bear Hunt". The students seemed excited and willing to try out all the different challenges I gave them. However, one challenge I ran into was that I think some of the children were confused whether I wanted them to act like the environment or like they were in the environment. It may have been fun to try to have the students try both types of movement.
Moving forward, I want to work on providing the students with clear instructions so that they have more room for creativity. I think that if they understand my expectations, they will feel more free to try new things and be creative.
We're Going on a Bear Hunt Lesson Plan
We started off our lesson by each drawing a certain locomotive movement from a hat, and then doing that movement as if we were in different environments, like moving through honey or along a sandy beach. I thought it would be fun for the students to each have their own movement, such as marching or skipping or jumping. However, I think for first graders, it may have confused them to have the people around them doing different movements. In the future, I may stick to having them all do the same locomotor movement in order to reduce confusion.
I read with them the book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen. It's a lovely book - one of my favorites from when I was young. It has a beautiful sing-songy cadence with repetition that made it fun for the kids to join in with the different sounds and onomatopoeias. That helped them all stay engaged throughout the readaloud.
We then did some different activities moving through the space as if going through the different environments described in "We're Going on a Bear Hunt". The students seemed excited and willing to try out all the different challenges I gave them. However, one challenge I ran into was that I think some of the children were confused whether I wanted them to act like the environment or like they were in the environment. It may have been fun to try to have the students try both types of movement.
Moving forward, I want to work on providing the students with clear instructions so that they have more room for creativity. I think that if they understand my expectations, they will feel more free to try new things and be creative.
We're Going on a Bear Hunt Lesson Plan
I liked your lesson using "We're Going on a Bear Hunt." I have also been in a first grade class and used this same book for a lesson, but I chose to focus the lesson on the various settings in the book. I think it's interesting how many uses you can get out of one text! You could create a whole unit plan from one book.
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