Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Author/Illustrator: Bill Martin Jr./Eric Carle

About the Author:

http://www.billmartinjr.com/bill_martin
Bill Martin wrote for almost 60 years and published his first book called The Little Squeegy Bug -- The Story of the Firefly in 1945. He is the famous author of the classic Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, and many others. Martin passed away in 2004 but he will always be considered "America's favorite children's author!"

Genre: Fiction, Science

Grade Level: K-1
Theme: Animals, Colors

Synopsis:

This book is about different animals and what they see as well as learning about different colors.  The book includes a bear, a bird, a duck, a horse, a frog, a car, a dog, a sheep, a goldfish for animals but it also includes a teacher and children so when children read this book, they can see they are included.

Pre Reading Activity:

Activity:
Ask the students if they have ever read or have seen this book before.  If they haven't ask them to tell you what they see around the classroom.  If they have ask them if they notice any patterns in the book!

Post Reading Activity:

Activity:
After reading the story, create a graph with the class about the different characters in the story.  Have the children name off each of the characters in the story and use this to make a bar graph.  Use the colors from the story, (brown, red, yellow, blue, green, purple, white, black, and gold), and have these colors correspond to the construction paper each child will choose based on which was their favorite character.  They will then write their names on the construction paper color they chose and place it on the graph according to the animal it matched.  After the graph is finished, you can ask questions to engage them in thinking mathematically about which animal did students like the most, which had more, the Red Bird or the Blue Horse, which had less, the Brown Bear of the Purple Cat, etc. and have them use the graph to help them answer the questions.

Reflection:

I think this is a great book to use because it repeats and students will easily be able to continue the phrase starting with "Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" to "children, children, what do you see?"  This helps them listen to the story and get a better understanding of what they are reading.  I wish they could have had the colors match the actual color of the animal, but it shows the students different colors and animals they see in everyday life.  It is also a good book to use to introduce colors and there are multiple activites you can do after reading this book to make students familiar with colors.