Bears, Bears, Everywhere!
By Sheena McDougall
Topic Statement: Students will learn about a bear’s habitat, what they eat, and different
characteristics of bears through predictions, field experiences, and classroom activities.
Grade Level: 1
Approximate # of students: 24
IRP Goals and Objectives
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Describe the basic needs of local plants and animals (food, water, etc.)
Describe how the basic needs of plants and animals are met in their environment.
Communicate their observations, experiences, and thinking in a variety of ways (verbally,
pictorially, graphically).
General scope and sequence of science content
This unit focuses on different types of bears and their characteristics. It deals with where
bears live, what they eat, what they look, feel, and sound like. Students will learn about what bears
need to survive in their habitats, and why they live where they do. The first activity that we do gives
the students a general understanding of all bears. We talk about the characteristics of bears and any
experiences we have ever had with bears. In our next lesson, we elaborate on the characteristics of
bears. This will give the students a better understanding of the size of bears compared to humans.
Next we will go into a reading and writing exercise. This will be the beginning of a Bear Book that
we will each create. This is to reinforce what we learn in this unit so the students can refer back to it
whenever they need to. In the next lesson we get into what bears eat. We will explore our local
environment to find out if it has enough food for bears to survive. In the next 3 lessons, we discuss
different habitats for different bears. Each lesson focuses on one type of bear. Next we compare the
different habitats of these bears. This is important because it applies all that we have learned so far:
habitats, characteristics, and food supply. The last lesson, the class will play different games putting
their knowledge to the test, learning new facts about bears, and applying what they already know,
and having fun with it!
Descriptions of Major Explorations
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Exploration 1 – All About Bears
- Students will use their senses to describe the characteristics of bears and make
conclusions on what bears look, feel, and sound like.
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Students will move around the room to different stations. After they have visited
each station, we will come back as a group and discuss our observations.
Exploration 2 – A Bear’s Bare Feet
- We will look at the characteristics of a bear’s foot and we will compare it to our own
feet. We will have a life size cut out of a few different bear’s feet. We will discuss
the similarities and differences between human feet and bear feet.
- This will lead into discussions on how big bears are compared to humans.
Exploration 3 – Good As New
- We will make predictions about the story by reading the title and looking at the
cover. Students will learn about the importance of sharing with others.
- Students will complete a worksheet with this lesson. This is the beginning of our
“Bear book”. Each lesson will have an activity that we will add to our Bear book.
Exploration 4 – A Bear Eats What?
- Students will collect different samples of food that bears eat. Using a handout
provided, we will collect as much as we can, as well as some that may not be on the
sheet. We will discuss what bears eat and where they get their food supply.
Exploration 5 – A Brown Bear Lives Where?
- We will read through a book of brown bear facts. We will learn about what a brown
bear needs from its environment to survive. Where can brown bears find the food
they need? We will visit a nearby forest and determine if bears could live there. Can
they live where it is cold all year? We will explore this through discussion and
applying knowledge we already know.
Exploration 6 – A Black Bear Lives Where?
- The classroom will become a Black Bear’s habitat. We will have trees, food, pictures
of Black bears, and other animals that share a Black bear’s habitat.
- Through different stations in the class, students will become familiar with the habitat
of a Black bear, family structure, and other animals that live with bears.
Exploration 7 – What About Polar Bears?
- Students will learn how polar bears eat primarily meat, and they live in the Polar
Regions. We wouldn’t find polar bears in a forest. Students will learn why this is so,
and what they do to survive in their habitats.
Exploration 8 – Lets Compare These Three Bears!
- With the knowledge that we have attained in the previous lessons, we will compare
the bears we have focused on. We will look at characteristics, habitats, and eating
habits. We will have a Guess That Bear game, as well as different games.
Exploration 9 – A Beary Good Day!
- This is a game day. It will sum up everything that we have learned about bears.
Everything will be handed in for the teacher to laminate their bear books, and
students will participate in activities that will apply their knowledge of bears.
Safety issues
Throughout this unit, we will be making sure we are aware of our own space, and respect
other people around us. We will make sure that when using classroom equipment we follow the
rules that have previously been set up by the class. For example, in the first lesson, the teacher will
be in charge of the CD player, no student should play with it. Another major safety issue that we
will address is staying together as a group as we are out on our field experience. Students should be
aware of where the group is going at all times so they don’t get lost.
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All About Bears
Science Process Skills Focus – Observing
Objectives
Students will be able to:
 Describe the characteristics of a bear. What bears sound, look, and feel like. They
will do this by listening to bear sounds, and looking at pictures.
 Work together cooperatively in groups.
 Describe the way a teddy bear feels by touching a stuffed animal, and compare it to a
real bear.
 Illustrate their knowledge of bears by drawing a picture and completing the
sentences on the handout.
Safety Considerations
When participating in activities and moving around to view pictures, be aware of your own
space, and things in the room, and people around you.
Materials
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CD player for the bear sounds
CD of bear sounds
Pre-made poster of real bears, sign for teddy and real bears
Teddy bear’s that the students bring in, and extras that teacher brings
Lesson plan
Worksheet “All About Bears”
Engage
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Put up your hand if you brought your favourite teddy bear. (If you don’t have one I have one
for you). Tell the person beside you why it is your favourite teddy bear. Share with me what
you talked about together. When you are done put your teddy bear on the table and come sit
back down.
Brainstorm together what we already know about real bears. We will make a chart of our
bear words and keep them up for everyone to refer back to throughout the lesson and when
we work on our worksheet.
Explain
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Teddy Bears: Soft, Cuddly, Cute. Real Bears: Soft, Big, Dangerous, loud. Sound, Look,
Feel.
Teddy bears and real bears have some similarities and differences. They are both soft and
look the same sometimes, but there are quite a few differences as well. Teddy bears can be
all sorts of different colours, and although they are both soft, teddy bears may feel different
than real bears. Teddy bears are non-living, whereas real bears are living. Real bears need
food to eat, and they can move around by themselves to get this food. Real bears are very
big, loud, and sometimes scary. They are usually brown, black, or white in colour. Real
bears have big paws, and big teeth. They also have a very loud growl and different sounds
that they make.
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Explore
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Students will be put into groups of 3 and together they will go to each station. Group one
will go to the Sound station, group two will go to the See station, and group three will go to
the touch station. Each group will be at their station for 5 minutes, and I will give a signal to
tell them when to move onto the next station. When moving to a new station, the students
will point to where they are going, and will all move together at the same time. After
everyone is finished at all three stations, we will move back to our seats and talk about what
we just experienced.
When moving around in the class, be aware of others. The teacher will be in charge of the
CD player; no student will play with it. This will be pre-determined from past use.
At station one, the Sound station, students will listen to mini sound clips of what bears
sound like. Students will listen carefully and discuss with a partner what it sounds like to
them. Is it scary? Is it loud? At station two, the See station, students will look at many
different pictures of different types of real bears. What do you see? What do they look like?
Are they big or small? What colour are they? Do they have sharp claws? They will discuss
with the same partner what they see. At station three, the Touch station, students will feel
the different textures of the teddy bears, are they soft, rough, smooth? They will discuss
with their partner what the bears feel like. It might also be possible to bring in a bear pelt to
feel the fur. After observing the stations, we will watch a video on bears in their habitats.
Elaborate
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Everyone is back in their seats, and we are sharing our experiences. Students will tell what
they learned that they had never known before about bears. We will discuss about bear
safety. And what to do if you are confronted with a bear. We will also add more words to
our list of bear words that we did at the beginning of the lesson. We will keep this list up for
the duration of our bear unit, and we will add our new words to it every day we do a new
lesson. This section of the lesson will be open for any questions the students have about
bears or about the activities.
We will now work on the worksheet; each student will draw a picture of a bear in real life.
They will fill in the spaces on the bottom of the sheet describing the characteristics of the
bear that they have drawn. They will also write a simple sentence on why they like their
bear.
Extend
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Using life size pictures of a bear paw, we can compare the size of our feet by standing on it.
This will help us understand how big bears really are compared to humans.
What would you do if you were a bear in the wild? Where do you think you would live?
Evaluate
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Did the students complete the worksheet provided using the appropriate language to fill in
the sentences?
Did the students participate in discussions about their experiences while partaking in the
different stations?
Did the students add to our list of bear words?
Did the students cooperatively work together in groups?
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Good As New
Reading & Writing Focus
Objectives
Students will be able to:
 Make predictions about the story that will be read to the class.
 Participate in discussions about the story.
 Apply the feelings and act of sharing to real life situations that they have dealt
with, and share these experiences and feelings with the class.
 Make decisions about sharing, and describe why they feel that way.
 Successfully complete the worksheets provided.
Safety Considerations
When sitting on the floor at carpet time, keep hands and feet to yourself. Respect other
student’s input, and comments.
Materials
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Read through the book and find places where I could stop and ask questions to get the
students discussing their thoughts and feelings.
Book: Good As New by Barbara Douglass.
Chart paper for predictions made by class
Engage
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Start discussion on the cover of the book. Read the students the title of the book and discuss
the cover. Use the pictures to invoke questions and discuss what the students think will
happen in the story. We will write down these predictions on chart paper, and add to them
with new predictions throughout the story. We will put each set of predictions away until we
finish reading the book.
Brainstorm about sharing. What is sharing? Is it something you like? Is it something you
choose to do?
Explain
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Sharing, teddy bears, feelings
Sharing is very important in everyday life. It is also very important to teach young students
the value of sharing while they are still young. Before reading through the story together, we
will discuss the importance of sharing by brainstorming together. This is important for all
students to hear their peers’ thoughts on sharing, so they can compare them to their own
thoughts. Was there anything that you had to share with someone that you didn’t want to?
What did you have to share? Why did you have to share it? How did it make you feel? How
did it make them feel? Sharing helps friends and families get along. It is very important to
every relationship, and can make all the difference in one person’s day.
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Explore
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Now that we have discussed what sharing means to us, and made predictions about what
will happen in the story, we will come over to the carpet and read the book “Good As New”.
Share your space on the carpet with everyone around you. Make sure not to take up too
much space. Be respectful of the students around you.
We will read the first few pages of the book and then decide whether we would share the
bear if we were Grady in the story. We will each write our yes or no answer on a sticky note
and hand them in and graph them on the board. Volunteers will share their reasons why they
chose the answer they did.
Read the story half way through and make predictions at that half way point about what we
think will happen in the end of the story. We will make a new chart of predictions and set it
aside with our first sheet that we created earlier. As we read through the book we will
continue to discuss what happens in the story.
We will finish the rest of the story and discuss our predictions.
Elaborate
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Were any of our predictions close to how the story ended? Did anyone think it would end
the way that it did?
We will also have a worksheet that we will work on where we can write simple sentences on
our feelings and a time when we had to share something. Some of the sentences that will be
on the worksheet include: I had to share… I didn’t want/wanted to share it because…
Extend
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We can reread through the story and talk about what the student’s favourite part of the book
was, and why it is their favourite.
Another extension is to start making a bear book. We will start the book by writing our
sentences on sharing.. We will also keep adding to it with every lesson that we do. Each
lesson will have some form of activity or worksheet that will be placed in the book. In the
end we will have our very own “Bears, Bears, Everywhere” book to remember what we
learned in this bear unit.
Evaluate
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Did students complete the “Make It Good As New worksheet” successfully? Were the
words properly filled in, and the pictures as well?
Did students participate in creating the predictions table?
Did they share appropriate examples about sharing?
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A Bear Eats What?
Field Experience Focus
(This lesson will take 2 days, the first day for the field experience and
the second day to discuss and observe the food that we collected)
Objectives
Students will be able to:
 Apply what we learned last lesson about what bears eat in our surrounding area.
 Collect appropriate food from the nature around us that bears are able to eat.
 Make connections between different types of food and where you find them to
the different bears’ habitats.
 Work cooperatively in pairs, equally sharing the workload.
Safety Considerations
When we are outside, stay together with your pre-determined partner. Don’t eat anything
that we collect. Stay with the group, and make sure you wash your hands when we return to the
school.
Materials
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Pre-made partners in class before we go on our field experience.
Bags and buckets for our food that we find in nature.
Magnifying glasses to look closely at the food.
Sheet of pictures of food that we previously discussed in class.
Engage
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In class we will have samples of different berries, plants, roots, and leaves, etc. that bears
eat. Each item that we have on display will have the names labeled with them. Students will
be put into groups of 3 or 4. Each group will have the chance to get around to every station.
At each of these stations, students will feel, look, smell, and observe each item. Each group
will discuss with each other what they are observing, and when we are finished and return to
our seats, we will share with the class.
After we have discussed what we saw in our observations, we will talk about what else we
have learned in the previous lessons about what kinds of food bears eat. Some things we
won’t be able to collect when we go to Goldstream Park, but we will do the best that we can
in finding as much as we can.
Explain
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Food, Berries, Leaves, Insects, Nature, Goldstream Park.
Bears eat a lot of things. You might think with their big scary teeth that they eat a lot of
meat, but that is not true. Most bears eat primarily fruits, plants, insects, roots, berries and
things like that as well as some meat. After we explore the bear food that we have in the
class, we will discuss where we might find these types of food. Where do bears live? Would
they live in the desert or somewhere in the forest? Why do you think they wouldn’t live in
the desert? Do you think they could live in forests around here? Why or why not? We will
discuss the reasons why bears can and do live around here. Primarily black bears, (who we
have already discussed) live around here, as well as some grizzly bears. They live in the
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forests because they can get their food, insects, berries, plants, and much more, from forests,
as opposed to deserts.
Explore
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Students will have a buddy who they will stay close to when we are out exploring the trails
of Goldstream Park.
While we are out at Goldstream Park, students must stay in their partners, and they must
stick with the group at all times. We all must remember not to eat any of the plants that we
collect. Some might be poisonous. Also be respectful of the trails, plants, any animals you
might see, and all living things outside.
Each pair will have a bag and a bucket that they will carry around with them. Together
students will gather as much as they can collect from Goldstream Park. They will refer back
to the sheet with the pictures of the bear food that we previously discussed in class. Students
are free to collect anything else that they think bears might eat and they will bring it back to
class. When we arrive back to class we will talk about all of our findings. Everyone will
bring their bags up to the front and I will sort them into categories. By this time class will
have finished, but we will pick up where we left off the next day. Everything that we
collected will be in categories and we will discuss these categories.
Elaborate
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Before we get into the different categories of food that we collected last day. We will have a
discussion about what each group found and where they found it. Did you see anything
interesting outside in Goldstream Park? Did you see anything that bears might eat that you
couldn’t actually take with you? What are some of these things? We will discuss our
experiences as we were walking through the park.
In the categories of food that we displayed in the class from last day, there will be some in
there that bears do not eat. Together as a class we will go through the different types of food
and explain why or why not bears would eat each selection. This way it will reinforce what
we determined about what bears eat. Students will be free to ask any questions they have
about bears and what they eat and why. Also any other questions they might have.
Extend
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We could take a trip to the zoo and find out what they feed the bears there, and how they
keep their living conditions similar to what they would be if they were in the wild.
This lesson could open up conversation or a complete new lesson on how developments in
towns and cities are affecting bear’s resources. Society is constantly building new houses,
and getting rid of a lot of forests, so where are the bears supposed to live?
Evaluate
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Were the students involved in collecting items from the park?
Did the students work cooperatively in pairs, sharing the workload?
Did the students respect the wildlife in Goldstream Park at all times?
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“Bears, Bears, Everywhere” Assessment
Rationale
My assessment is generally observation during each lesson, as well as cooperation,
completing assignments, and quality of work handed in. I decided to evaluate this unit in this
manner because it is a unit for Grade 1 students, and I feel that doing quizzes and tests is a little too
early for this age group. I feel that the worksheets that are provided for the students to complete will
be sufficient enough to assess their knowledge of the lessons.
I think that if the students can get the work done and in on time, and it is quality work, then
they deserve a good mark. Throughout the entire unit, I will be watching for how much each student
participates with a good attitude, and how much they contribute to conversations and discussions.
This is important because at this age a lot of students have a hard time voicing their opinions and
ideas. In order to build confidence in themselves, I will encourage sharing of their ideas and
thoughts. It would be ideal to use different techniques of calling on the students to make sure they
are paying attention. For example, everyone keeps their hands down, and the teacher calls randomly
on students to answer the questions.
I will also be assessing the final book prepared using all of the worksheets completed with
each lesson. I will be looking for completion of the worksheets, effort put into them, and
understanding of the knowledge by the correct answers on the worksheets. I will also be looking for
neatness in their printing, as well as correct spelling with the words that we have gone over.
I feel that this is the most efficient way to mark this unit because it is important for students
to feel encouraged to participate and cooperate with others. If this is reinforced in class, the students
will hopefully be more inclined to participate. I also feel that the book at the end is a good form of
assessment because it has all of the knowledge that they have attained in one end package. This is
great to assess because it will be easy to pick out what the student might have missed and what they
picked up from the lessons.
Below is a sample worksheet, where I would be looking for correct descriptive words,
understanding of the bears physical features as learned in the lessons, neatness in the printing, and
effort put into the picture drawn by the student.
Resources
Project Wild
Thematic Unit on Bears by Teacher Created Resources
http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/YLP/97-98/97-98_units/97-98miniunit/RCalhouns_Bears/Bear_Overview.htm
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All About Bears!
This is my bear picture!
My bear’s name is
I like my bear because
A bear’s fur is
A Bear sounds
A bear looks
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