Mini-Unit Topic: Bears

Karen Heyen

EMail: k-heyen@uiuc.edu

Year Long Project

University of Illinios, Urbana-Champaign
Curriculum & Instruction 237
Fall 1994

Grade Level: Kindergarten

 

 

Table of Contents

Mini-Unit Overview

This mini-unit about bears is designed specifically for kindergarten. I chose to use bears for two reasons. First, my cooperating teacher has a letter of the week each week. She does a unit each week that starts with the letter of the week. This week's letter is B, so I decided to use bears. Second, I chose bears because I think that 5 and 6 year old children will enjoy this topic, and I want this unit to be an enjoyable learning experience for them. Most of the children have teddy bears, so they can relate to bears in some way.

The following goals should be achieved through this unit about bears:

  1. Students should be able to recognize the difference between living bears and non-living bears.
  2. Students should be able to recognize and name the polar bear, brown bear, black bear, and panda. (Note: Scientists still debate whether or not a panda is a bear, but I have decided to include pandas in this unit.)
  3. Students should know a few foods that bears eat.
  4. Students should learn how bears walk (amble).
  5. Students should know that bears live in dens and sleep through the winter.

I hope to achieve these goals through the five lessons in this unit, but the students will also practice other skills during this unit. These skills include: sorting and classifying, counting, active listening skills, choral reading, illustration, authorship, prediction, drawing and describing a picture, and picture graphs.

Another important goal of this unit is to interest children in books. I think it is important for kindergarten children to be exposed to good books and to have the opportunity to publish books. With this in mind, I will be reading aloud quite often, and the class will be making several class books.

I will be using these lessons over a one week time period, and I will probably use them in the following order. First, I want to introduce living and non-living bears. I want to do this first because I think that the children will relate to non-living bears, such as teddy bears and bears in story books. The next two lessons teach the children more about living bears. Finally, we will wrap up the unit by making a book of our favorite bears.

Lesson 1: Living and Non-living Bears

Introduction to Bears: Identifying and Sorting Bears into Collages

(Lesson 1 integrates science and math.)

Lesson 2: What Do Bears Eat?

"Five Black Bears" - Illustrating a Poem to Make a Book

(Lesson 2 integrates science, art, and language arts.)

Lesson 3: Where Do Bears Live?

The Mitten : A Language Experience Approach

(Lesson 3 integrates science, art, and language arts.)

Lesson 4: Our Favorite Bears

Graphing and Creating a Class Book

(Lesson 4 integrates science, art, math, and language arts.)