The following are ideas for using
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? in the classroom.

• Submitted by Alison Talton

  When we used Polar Bear, Polar Bear I thought it would be nice sequencing real pictures of the endangered species in the book I put together a little power point that my PPCD/Pre-K kids can use the space bar to move through the sequence with real photos of the animals in their natural habitats with no words on the page. I am working on finding sound bits that will play automatically when the kids click on to the next page/animal, but I haven’t downloaded enough good quality sound bits. The children love the prediction and clicking to see if they are right and I think they have really enjoyed seeing the real animals in their habitat and making those connection to their art representation.

• Submitted by Victoria

  I use Polar Bear, Polar Bear for an Artic Unit. We study all about the animals in the Artic. Then, each child draws a picture of an Artic animal on blue paper and makes a snowy scene. We use the story pattern to write our Artic story and use different verbs for the animals’ sounds such as howling, growling, bellowing, thumping, etc. I end the story with an Inuit boy or girl who hears happy children. I have each child draw a small picture of himself and glue a cutout from a class picture for their head. The children really enjoy seeing their real pictures as heads for their drawn bodies.

• Submitted by Debbie Miller

  As a kindergarten student teacher, I used the Polar Bear book as a model for writing our own classroom book titled “What do you Hear?” I took polaroid pictures of each of the students, framed them, and pasted them on large sheets of white construction paper. The captions read, “Blank, Blank, what do you hear? I hear a blank, blanking in my ear.” One by one, the students would tell me what to write in the blanks. For example, “Juan, Juan what do you hear? I hear a lion roaring in my ear.” The children illustrated their own pages. We laminated all the pages and bound them in big book form. The students loved reading the book as a class and especially enjoyed reading their own page!

• Submitted by Louise

  We make a class book following the reading of Polar Bear. To reinforce listening and auditory skills, I make a recording of different sounds around the house, as many sounds as there are children in the class. In class I’ll say, “Children, children, what do you hear?” After they have guessed all of the sounds, I assign a child a sound, which he or she illustrates. After our book is made and we have had fun listening and reading it together, it is put in the listening center and quickly becomes a favorite!

• Submitted by Holly

  After reading and doing various activities with Polar Bear I finish the book study with a large art project. The different animals in the book are blown up onto large butcher paper and the children are grouped together. I set out paint, tissue paper, cotton, buttons, marshmallows, felt, yarn, pipe cleaners, colored art feathers, colored paper, etc. The children work on their projects whenever they have time. When each animal is finished I cut them out of the butcher paper and attach a sentence strip underneath the picture with the sentence each animal is saying.

• Submitted by Kristal Petersen

  We read the story and then did these two art projects: We traced a polar bear shape onto gray paper and let the children glue packing pieces onto the bear.

  We also made a “Polar Bear in a snowstorm.” We do this with our winter unit. We let the children paint white “snow” all over the blue piece of paper. We then let them glue a cotton ball. The cotton ball represents the polar bear.

• Submitted by Becky O.

  I teach at-risk four-year-olds and use Polar Bear, Polar Bear each year to reinforce auditory listening skills. We begin by reading the book through several times so that students can develop a feel for the rhythm of language. Then we play a large group game similar to “Doggie, Doggie, Where’s Your Bone?” One student sits in a chair with his eyes covered. Another student tiptoes up behind and says “Hello.” Classmates then chant, “(student’s name, student’s name), Who do you hear?” The student whose eyes are covered responds by guessing who has spoken to him. Teachers keep a record of who is in the chair and who is speaking. It works perfectly if the person who speaks takes the next turn being in the chair. After all students have played, a book is created by writing “(student’s name, student’s name), Who do you hear?” at the top of the page. Enough space for a portrait is left in the middle of the page. At the bottom the teacher writes “I hear (student’s name) talking in my ear.” Each child gets a page and draws a picture of the child who said, “hello” to him during the game. This also helps students to recognize their own names and friends’ names in print.

• Submitted by Anne Marie

  Using Polar Bear, Polar Bear for science was so easy. We were doing a study of animals. I created a polar bear shaped book. In this book the students had to put the correct sound for animals you find in winter, in Canada. This way they would know the sounds of local animals. They enjoyed this book, they also enjoyed trying to make the same sounds. I used this in grade one.

• Submitted by Vicki Sapp

  I have used Polar Bear, Polar Bear in January for an arctic animals theme.

  During polar bear day, we finger paint with white paint. Completely cover the page the child is working on. After it dries, give the child cotton or batting (etc) to glue onto the page. This becomes a “polar bear in a snowstorm.” While kids are working, narrate some true polar bear facts to them—like they can smell food up to 20 miles, etc.!

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