Summer of 60 Pins, #44: Panda Bear Masks

Today was the last day for EYS for me. Mostly, I've been doing books with activities from the LINC series. If you don't know about LINC, check it out here. The books are great for doing easy activities, plus there are pages to copy and send home to parents.

But today, I decided to do "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?" by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle. After the book, we made a panda bear mask:
Sorry for the blurriness. I haven't mastered the camera on the iPad yet, especially with busy young kids!

The Pin from first palette is much prettier than my version, but I'm teaching language, not art.
                                                             Source: firstpalette.com via Laura on Pinterest

The panda is designed to be a mask, but I wasn't sure how the students would react if they couldn't actually see without eyeholes. I pictured holding the mask up and saying, "Panda bear, panda bear, what do you see?" and the students responding "white" or "plate" or not at all. So I cut out the eyeholes. Also, I was too lazy to cut out all the parts, so I traced the patches around the eyes, and the students worked on requesting the black crayon and telling what they were drawing. I freehanded the ears and taped them on, after getting a request, of course!

The Good: The book and craft were popular with the students. I also found a side benefit. After taking pictures on the iPad, students were able to say, "I see me!", and "I" and "me" are two pronouns I have difficulty working on in context. Bonus! We got in a LOT of pronoun work today! Plus body parts, following directions, and sequencing.

The Bad: Some of the younger students were convinced that they were bears after I took their picture on the iPad and proceeded to growl. I was happy with the verbalizations, but I'm not sure their teachers were...

Summary: The pattern of the Bill Martin Jr./Eric Carle books is popular for a reason - kids really respond to it. The mask is easy to put together for young students. I would do this again with a different group of students.


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