Bring in books featuring bears for your class to enjoy in the reading center. Read a few aloud during circle time. A few good choices include the Winnie the Pooh stories by A. A. Milne, or the Corduroy stories by Don Freeman. After reading a few bear books aloud, invite your students to write their own bear stories. Provide paper and art supplies for students to illustrate their story. Ask students to dictate their story to you and write it on the bottom of the page. Hang the bear stories in the classroom or bind them together to make a class book.
Teach your preschool students about size and ordering with a fun bear story, suggests the website First School. Bring three teddy bears to class: one small, one medium and one large. During circle time, read the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears to your students. Use the bears you brought in as props while reading the story. When you have finished, ask students to put the bears in order from largest to smallest, or tallest to shortest. Take away the largest or smallest bear, and then ask students which is largest and which is smallest.
Teach your students about polar bears and their habitat. Show pictures and videos of polar bears playing in the snow and swimming in icy water. Fill a sensory table or large tub with icy water, and let students stick their hands in to feel how cold it is. Discuss how thick fur and blubber keep a polar bear warm in cold weather. Talk about the ways students stay warm in cold weather.
Turn the dramatic play area into a wilderness fit for bears. Provide a large box or use blankets to make a bear den for students to play in and pretend to hibernate, suggests National Geographic Kids. Show videos of bears in their habitats, and encourage students to walk, run, stand and growl like bears. Discuss the foods that bears eat, including plants, berries and fish, and offer berries, vegetables and goldfish crackers to your students during snack.