Brown Bear Tot Bag

For the past few weeks, my toddler son has been carrying around his favorite board book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle. He loves this book so much that I put the art work by his changing table. Every time we change a diaper, we talk about the animals and the sounds they make. I am preparing for next school year for my older daughter and I really wanted to gather some activities for Kaleb to do while we were working. I like the busy bag idea found on pinterest.com. Children's lit is one of my passions and it seemed only natural to create a busy bag based on a book. Here is my creation....

My Brown Bear tot bag. By no means do I plan to do "school" with my toddler. I just wanted to include some fine motor activities and fun things to keep him pleasantly occupied. He may or may not be able to do all of the activities provided but I am sure he will grow into them.

First, my pride and joy - Brown Bear finger puppets. I had this idea swimming in my head for a long time. I searched and searched the internet for patterns and ideas. I struggled with the fish until I just traced the art work from the two part puzzles. All my links will be at the bottom of the post if you are interested in making these.

I found these in a Brown Bear printable pack from 1plus1plus1equals1. They are two part puzzles. I printed them, laminated them, and glued magnets on the back. The cookie sheet makes a portable magnet board. Kaleb loves playing with magnets - taking them off, putting them on.

I also found this color wheel activity from homeschool share. Will he be able to match the colors? Maybe. I really just wanted to give him some practice with the clothespins - fine motor activity. I added paper strips with the some of the characters from the book. This could be used two different ways. I would let him color them and then, we would work with scissors to cut them. I love the toddler scissors that only cut paper - no hair or fabric. Scissors may be hard for him but I wanted to give him a diverse selection of activities to do. I wanted to add an eye spy bottle but I didn't have all of the animals to put inside. This one uses printed paper animals to find but I really wanted to use small play animals (maybe let J paint them). So that will have to wait until I get back from 'Merica.

I plan on making more tot bags based on board books that we own. They will have several activities in each bag. Just choosing the next book I will work on is the hardest part for me.....Chicka Chicka Boom Boom....Goodnight Moon.... More to come. Hope you enjoyed my creation. If you have any ideas that would be great to add, please let me know. I am always looking for new ideas.

Brown Bear Links

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/brown_bear_brown_bear.php  this file has the color wheel activity and the strips for cutting

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/BrowBearBrownBear.html  this file has the two part puzzles as well as so much more for an older child, I traced the fish from the puzzles. I just couldn't find a good fish finger puppet pattern.

http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/BrownBearEyeSpyBottle.htm here is the eye spy bottle idea with the paper animals and a pre reader checklist, and tons more activities

http://sebastiandiaries.blogspot.com/2011/11/felt-fun.html this blogger made a puppet glove based on Brown Bear

http://brightappleblossom.blogspot.com/2010/12/felt-finger-puppets.html most of my finger puppets came from here, she even has a printable pattern!