Since I have named my preschool storytime Book Cubs I figured that I should write a post about bears.
Of course, the first thing that springs to my head when I think of bears is the Bill Swerski's Super Fans saying "Da Bears", but I suppose a Saturday Night Live sketch is not quite appropriate for young children.Keeping it kid friendly, there are a ton of adorable picture books featuring bears. Probably one of most well known bear books is Brown Bear, Brown Bear written by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle.
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Brown Bear, Brown Bear is perfect book for toddlers who are just learning their colors as well as the names of different animals. I know that I have previously mentioned my admiration for Eric Carle. His brilliant animals are a beautiful complement to Martin's simple, repetitive text. The question and answer format of Brown Bear, Brown Bear will give little ones the opportunity to name the animal and color. You can also find countless printables and activities online that you can do before or after you read the book (makinglearningfun.com has several).
I created a flip book for my Busy Bees ( which is what I call my toddler storytime) to color and take home. Basically I printed two squares for each animal in the book on card stock. One with a black and white picture of the animal and the second with the words in color. To make the front and back of the book I printed print off a rectangle the length of the two squares.
Stack all of the animal pictures on the left and words on the right on top of the bottom rectangle and then put the title rectangle on top. Make sure that you do not line up the words to match the picture. The idea is that kids will have to flip through the cards to find the match.
To bind the book you will punch four holes along the top (two in the top of each square) and string together with yarn. I was going to use the metal rings, but they made the book too heavy and I imagined kids whacking each other with them. Just do not tie the yarn too tight otherwise you will not be able to flip the pages. Now, have the kids color the pictures of the animals to match the words. There you have it: A color matching flip book to go with Brown Bear, Brown Bear.
A newer author/illustrator who has quickly become a favorite of mine is Peter Brown. Brown's illustrations in Creepy Carrots written by Aaron Reynolds earned him a Caldecott Honor in 2013 and his book, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild was the recipient of the 2014 Mitten Award (Michigan's own version of Caldecott). This post is about bears, though, so I want to talk about Children Make Terrible Pets and You Will Be My Friend. The star of these two books is Lucy, who is a highly energetic young bear cub wearing a pink bow and tutu.
In You Will Be My Friend Lucy is back and desperate to make a new friend. Unfortunately, Lucy's overbearing (haha bear pun) personality tends to push would-be-friends away. This story reminded me so much of my youngest son whose behavior often resembles that of an affectionate and disobedient puppy. Peter Brown makes a lot of hilarious book trailers for his own books. The trailer for You Will Be My Friend features Brown being interviewed by an enthusiastic Lucy.
Karma Wilson is a prolific children's author who has a whole series of books featuring Bear and his woodland friends. These are sweet and feature a simple rhyming text that will appeal to young children.Scare a Bear by Kathy-Jo Wargin is another rhyming book with vibrant and cheerful illustrations. I prefer picture books with humor and kids will laugh out loud as a young camper desperately tries to get a bear out of her cabin. If you like this one Wargin also has Moose on the Loose and Otter Out of Water, which are pretty similar.
Three bear books that I absolutely love reading are the Hugless Douglas books by David Melling. Douglas the bear is just so darn goofy and I adore the little sheep that always manages to stick to Douglas. 
If you are going to read about bears you have to include We're Going on a Bear Hunt. Many of us learned this action song at summer camp or school, but there is also a beautiful book written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxbury. You can watch an animated version of the story narrated by Michael Rosen to the right. The book was first published in 1989 and continues to be an incredibly popular board book. A celebratory pop-up version of We're Going on a Bear Hunt came out in 2007 and it is stunning! It would definitely make a wonderful gift for any book-loving little one.
After reading story books, my book cubs made paper plate bears which turned out incredibly cute. Basically you cut a U-shaped piece out of the bottom of a large paper plate. You can use this extra piece to cut out little ears and a tale. The head is just a smaller paper plate. I stapled the head, ears, and tail to the body because I was unsure if glue would be enough to hold them together. The muzzle of the bear is just a brown circle with a black triangle on it for a nose and we used the round stickers you buy for garage sale tags for eyes. You could just let the kids draw their own bear faces if you do not have construction paper. I had the kids sponge paint the bears, but markers would be just as good (and less messy). I love to let the kids in storytime use paint, glitter, chalk, clay, and all of those messy materials that they might not get to use at home. I think parents appreciate that the mess stays at the library (haha).I could go on with more bear ideas, but I don't want to overwhelm you. Notice, I did not even mention Teddy Bears. I will have to save those for another post.