Bachelor’s Degree in Primary Education

Didactics of the English Language

2019 2020
Lecturer: Cinta Cuella Llorca
Students: Laia Fibla & Mikel Queralt

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

In groups try to put these activities in order.

There are many different possibilities and you can choose not to include some of the
activities:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? By Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carle

Brown Bear, Brown Bear falls into the category of predictable books, and the
text is predictable in many ways. Each two-page spread has a question on the
left-hand side, and the answer on the right-hand side. Each question contains
the colour of the animal and its name; the name is repeated twice. The answer
to the question supplies the name and colour of the next animal to be asked
what it sees.

1. Coloured fish
Play the game “class and me” in order to practice the colours: brown, red, yellow, blue,
green, purple, white, black, gold.

2. Previous knowledge
Ask students to identify the sound each animal makes from the CD. You will check if they
already know the names of the animals or not. Tell them that you are not going to say the
names but they are going to see them later on.
Animals: bear, bird, duck, horse, frog, cat, dog, sheep, fish. You can include the sound of
children playing.

3. The book
Make explicit the text conventions; author’s name, title, layout etc.
Invite them to make predictions. What is the book about? Animals? Which animals are we
going to see in the book?
Read the story.
Count how many animals are mentioned in the book. Ask the students before.

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 Bachelor’s Degree in Primary Education
Didactics of the English Language
2019 2020
Lecturer: Cinta Cuella Llorca
Students: Laia Fibla & Mikel Queralt

4. Flashcards games
 Play a matching game with the animal and colour cards. Ask your students to match the
animal (bird) to the correct colour card (red). Another version is to match the picture with
the word card.
 Display all the animals. Let your student look, then ask her to cover her eyes. Take one
away and let her guess which one is missing.
 Hide the flashcards behind a black cardboard. You show progressively the flashcard.
Children have to guess what is it.

5. Stand up/sit down when you listen to the name of your animal
Distribute the character picture cards. You may want to punch holes in these, and string
yarn through so that children can wear them around their necks.
Tell the children that are to stand when their characters’ name is announced.

6. Children, children what do you see? Using binoculars

Make another story using your student’s name: Pol, Pol what do you see? Ask him what he
sees. He can invent new animals.
You can use binoculars and let’s pretend you can see the animals.

7. Colour hunt
Distribute the character cards to small groups of children so that every child is a member of
a group.
Explain that today we are going on a colour hunt. Each group is to find three things in the
classroom that are the colour of the picture on their character card.
Let the children explore. Call the group back together and let the members of each group
show their pictures. Use the pattern: Red birds, red birds what do you see? We see red
pencils, red papers, etc.

8. Categorising
Have students categorise each animal in the book in three categories: no legs, 2 legs, 4
legs.

9. Class games
 Chinese whispers: one student whispers an animal to another, which is passed through
until the last player announces the animal to the entire group.
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 Bachelor’s Degree in Primary Education
Didactics of the English Language
2019 2020
Lecturer: Cinta Cuella Llorca
Students: Laia Fibla & Mikel Queralt

 Pass the ball: When the music stops the child who’s got the ball has to say the name of
the animal in the box. All the class asks: Anna, Anna what do you see?

 True/false: Using small whiteboards ask children to write true or false depending on the
statements. For example: purple horse – false, red bird – true.

 Math problems: Use the storybook characters to create math problems. Brown bear saw
2 black sheeps and a goldfish. How many did he see in all?

 Run to...: At the playground children must run to touch the flashcards of the characters
in the story. The teacher says: red bird. The first child that touch the correct picture has
a point.

10. What’s your favourite animal in the story?

Make a graph with children’s opinions.

11. Stick puppets

Make stick puppets with the animal cards and let your students retell the story.
You can use the Shop Corner to prepare the puppets. A shop with sticks, glue, animals,
crayons, etc.

12. Families
Children write a note to their families inviting them to listen to the story using minibooks or
stick puppets. You decide whether they tell the original story or the new one created by
them.
Children bring a feedback from their families into the classroom.

13. Let’s prepare new stories following the pattern

Tell them that today they will be authors, and that they will write their own version of Brown
Bear, Brown Bear in groups.
Have children think about animals they would like to include in their book. They will need to
think of the colour of the animal as well. Show them that Martin has included a purple cat,
and that they can have their animals be any colour they want. Ex. Pink fish, Pink fish, What
do you see?
Children may illustrate their text. Help them by using a crayon to indicate the colour of the
animal that is to appear on the page.