Pajama & Teddy Bear Day

What a fun day!! The school day seems to fly by when you’re dressed in comfy pajamas with a cozy teddy bear in hand. 

Stuffed animal introductions started off the morning. Each student had the opportunity to introduce to the class, the stuffed bear/dog/cat etc. that they brought today. The stuffed friend’s name was shared as well as any fun information the student wanted to share. Some students explained where or who the stuffed animal came from and why it is special to them. 

There are eight sections of kindergarten at the elementary school. Today, each classroom held a different station where students participated in or completed a fun teddy bear related activity. 

My students started in the gym where they got to play with a parachute. Each child LOVED playing with the parachute! From there, we went to relay races. Students tried to walk with their stuffed animal on their head, between their legs, and on their back. Sorting was the focus for another station to incorporate math into the stations time. Listening to a silly bear book that was read on TumbleBooks.com was the fourth station.  

A SMARTBoard activity and poem was the next station. A teddy bear was outlined on the SMARTBoard as well as all of the pieces needed to create the bear (arms, eyes, a nose, legs etc.). The teacher read a poem about bears to the class but left one word out of each line. It was up to the students to determine which teddy bear word rhymed and would come next in the poem. That piece was then placed onto the outline. 

One of the stations was a science experiment (mixing colors) in the form of a story. The teacher told a story about a polar bear who lived in the zoo but was tired of being the same color day after day. So, one day, he found some paint and used it to paint his fur. But, when children came to the zoo to see him they did not like how bright his coloring was. Polar bear tried painting himself several different colors but, in the end, he liked being white the best. He decided to take a shower with lots of soap in hopes of scrubbing off all of the paint. It worked! And, in the end, the polar bear was white again. 

This experiment used: 

~ Clean water (to represent the polar bear) in a see through container 

~ Food coloring (to represent the paint used by the polar bear) which was added to the water making it change colors 

~ A water and soap mixture as the polar bears “soap” (not positive what was all in this) to “clean” the polar bear and return the water to clear.    

The last station was quite fun for the kids (and teachers!) Students danced to the gummy bear song. A video demonstrating the actions that accompanied the song was played on the SMARTBoard for students to follow. A second interactive video for the song/story “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt,” was also part of this station.  

At the end of the day, each student’s stuffed animal friend got to stay at school for a sleep over. After all of the students left, my mentor teacher and I wrote a letter to each student from their stuffed friend’s perspective telling about the animal’s mischievous night.

(These are a few of the letters; a different letter was written for each student)

We then placed the stuffed animals, with their letter, around the classroom for each student to find in the morning. 

(This student's letter told of the stuffed animal's fun playing Checkers all night)

(The student of this bear LOVES the art center, we thought it only fitting for her bear to be found there.)

The janitor even decided to have one of the bears help him clean the classroom!