"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" teaches colors and color words along with story sequencing. Create character cards for beginning, middle and end. As a pre-writing exercise, have students retell the story as they place character cards in the correct order on a story poster. Students can write a brief sentence underneath each character card describing the color and the event. The teacher should assist students with the spelling and punctuation and model writing on the board for students to refer to if necessary.
Using the "The Very Grouchy Lady Bug," students can engage in a creative writing activity. The teacher assigns the following writing prompt: "Write a story about a time when you were grouchy like the lady bug." Students can include illustrations, a beginning, middle and end, considering the question, "How was the ending the same or different than the Eric Carl's book?" The teacher should include sentence starters on the board such as "My ending was the same/different because... and I liked my ending better because..." Students can share stories with each other.
Write a comparison using "The Very Busy Spider." Students generate a list of facts about spiders after listening to story. Using a Venn Diagram, have students label one half of the diagram "SPIDERS" and the other half "INSECTS." The teacher can display an image of an insect next to a spider and the students identify similarities and differences. The teacher writes down student's responses on the overhead or on the board. Students can compare and contrast the insect and spider. After the Venn Diagram is completed, students can write a few sentences citing the similarities and differences. The teacher should provide modeling and sentence starters on the board or in a hand-out. For example, the first sentence might say "I discovered that spiders are not insects because..." and students can fill in the blank with a difference like "...they have four pairs of legs and insects have three pairs of legs."
An author study adds reality to the fiction. Visit the author's website (www.eric-carle.com), where students may see a photograph of Eric Carle, watch a video of him reading one of his books, and learn interesting details about him. The kindergartners connect to the writer as they discover how he feels about his readers, and that he is a father and has favorite foods and hobbies. The teacher can ask students to draw a picture of Eric Carle and write three interesting details about him. Another idea is to have students write letters to Eric Carle. Using facts about his life they can ask him a question, and then mention their favorite book and why. The teacher can model letter writing and provide examples on the board or on a handout.