We're going on a bear hunt | Michael Rosen

This has been another of our "b" sound stories recently.  It's an amazing story for joining in with - sitting on the sofa reading the story and joining in with the rhymes or running about pretending to go through all the places in the story, or talking about the illustrations and predicting what might happen next!.

We read the story using the book a few times over a few days.  Then decided to "tell" and "act out" the story with the children.  We made a den at one end of the room with a clothes airer and a blanket and put a bear in the den.  Then we gathered everyone at the other end of the room.

I printed out some pictures to go with each part of the story to show what we had to go "through" visually.  I used the ones from Twinkl (find them here), but Sparklebox do some too.  I laid the print outs on the floor equally spread out between where we had the children gathered and the den at the other end of the room!  Evaluation - use a little bit of tape to stick them (the print outs not the children!) to the floor first as they are very slidy!

Then we "tell" the story reciting the rhyme before each different place we need to go through.

"We're going on a bear hunt,
we're going to catch a big one,
what a beautiful day,
We're not scared"

Then we walk forwards all together and pretend to go "through" the mud, grass, snowstorm, forest and river, until we get to the cave, where we find the bear with 2 shiny eyes, one wet nose and 2 big ears!  Aaaaahhh!  Then we go all the way back through the mud, snowstorm, forest, river and grass until we get back home and "hide".

The children loved it and and wanted to do it again and again and again, until the grown-ups were too tired to join in anymore and the children carried on by themselves - narrating as they went. "Through the mud, squelch, squelch."  "Through the water splash, splash"

Wow that worked really well and the children really got "into" the story physically.  This is so important as some children just don't want to sit still and listen but will get active and join in with acting out a story.

What other stories can you "act out" like this?

For more ideas and inspiration see my pinterest boards here and the Facebook page here.

Enjoy!