Materials:
Bag
story props: ball, carpentry nails, toy rabbit, pear, sunglasses, leaves, toy
meat, pen, toy bat (animal), and bowl
bear and overalls patterns
cardboard
scissors
9” x 6” brown construction paper
markers
construction paper in various colors
small pear stickers or pre-cut pears
Instructions:
1. Beforehand, fill a bag with the story props. Tell the children the following story and pull out the appropriate props from the bag. Allow the children to giggle and correct your "mistakes."My friend invited me to a ball and told me to dress up. Why do I have to dress for a ball? She said we should also paint our nails, but I don't know why. She said to brush our hare, too. My friend is going to get a new pair of shoes. Do they make shoes with pears? When we are at the ball we might get to dance with the king's son, so I'm bringing my sunglasses. To get to the ball we will take a bus. The bus leaves at seven so we will meat a little early. On the way we'll pass a farm with a pen full of pigs. How do the pigs fit in there? We will also pass a baseball game. My friend said we will hear the bats hit the balls. How do bats do that? After the ball we are going bowling. I don't know how to play, but I brought a bowl. Do you think that we will have fun?
2. Explain that some words sound the same but have different meanings, which is sometimes confusing. Other words the children might recognize are night/knight, pale/pail, I/eye, and not/knot.
3. Tell the children they will be making bare bears. Because the bears are bare, they will also make a pair (pear) of pants.
4. Beforehand, make a bear pattern and overalls pattern by tracing the illustrations onto cardboard and cutting them out.
5. Give the children brown paper and encourage them to trace the bear pattern and cut it out. Then ask them to draw a face and toes on the bear.
6. Let the children choose a piece of paper, trace the overalls pattern on it, and cut out.
7. Encourage them to decorate the overalls with patterns, stripes, plaid, dots, and so on. Let them attach the pears to the pants.
8. Show the children how to bend back the shoulder straps of the overalls over the bear's shoulders to give the bear a pair (pear) of pants.
