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Advantages: useful in teaching quantity and size to students (eg; big/bigger/biggest, more/less)

Disadvantages: might be a waste of food if student does not eat them.

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I was looking on Pinterest and found hundreds of different recipes for overnight oatmeal! I thought that this would be the perfect food to prepare with Ethan, and what could be more fun than making porridge for the three bears? Reading through many different recipes I noticed that the ingredient ratios varied, but some were close, so I decided to simplify things and try equal parts, and it worked!

The Three Bears Easy Overnight Porridge

(We measured 1/4 cup for Baby Bear, 1/2 cup for Mama Bear and 1 cup for Papa Bear)

(We used strawberries and blueberries)

I set out 3 different sized bowls for each bear, and Ethan started measuring out the ingredients and pouring them into each bowl. As we combined everything together we told the story of The Three Bears. It's a story that Ethan knows well, as we often tell it to him when we're trying to pass the time and have no books around (in the car, restaurants, waiting rooms, etc). That made it easy for him to focus on making the porridge as well as joining in with the story.

The next morning he was very excited to eat the oatmeal, he didn't even want to play with his toys first thing, he just asked to have 'the breakfast we made.' Without any prompting Ethan started reciting the story as he ate his breakfast! He was also very insistant that Mama Bear and Papa Bear eat their porridge as well. A fun and easy way to play with our food, and Ethan loved it!

Knowledge and Understanding of the World

cooking - combining ingredients to make a finished dish

Communication, Language and Literacy

Niki is a stay at home Mom of two young children; Ethan and Ivy. As a former teacher she tries to bring fun and learning into the activities that they do each day.

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Play and Learn Every Day: Play With Your Food - The Three Bears' Porridge

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I was looking on Pinterest and found hundreds of different recipes for overnight oatmeal! I thought that this would be the perfect food to prepare with Ethan, and what could be more fun than making porridge for the three bears?

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Advantages: tools are simple and easily available

Disadvantages: materials seems flimsy

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Advantages: good for learning sequential relations, children can show creativity in their drawings

Disadvantages: student must havea certain level of drawing skills.

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We are starting our unit on Bears! Last week we read many versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Part of our work on the story included this story map. It is made for kindergarten students, but would be appropriate for first grade too. They drew pictures to show their ideas and then I labeled the drawing or wrote the dictation about what what happening in each part of the story.

First, the kiddos worked on the setting and characters. I love this colorful busy picture that includes all sorts of details. She put the beds outside the house because she wanted to include some of the items from inside the house in the picture.

This little boy drew just the house, but added the different sized bowls and had me label them.

This was a great characters picture. So darn cute!

Then on another day, students did pictures for the beginning, middle, and end of the story. First, we did an activity together where we ordered picture cards and talked about different parts of the story. It was great to hear the kids verbally retelling the story in their own words. That is one of the things that is great about doing an activity like this - a great way to really listen carefully to the oral language of students.

I love the picture of Goldilocks in this one. Her hair is great! (don't know why the big space is there, tried to fix it.....)

I was so excited when this little sweetie used the word "discovered" in her dictation to me. Woo hoo! Great language!

I thought my sweet little students did a great job with this activity! And I was happy with how much they were enjoying the many versions of the 3 bears stories. And, now that they have done a complete story map with a very familiar story, I can start doing these with more challenging literature.

OK, here it is, just click on the link under this image to go grab it in my TpT store:

I hope it is a big help in your classroom!

Please leave some love in the comments if you are using it with your class.

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We are starting our unit on Bears! Last week we read many versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Part of our work on the story included this story map. It is made for kindergarten students, but would be appropriate for first grade too.

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Advantages: many numeracy and literacy skills can be embedded in the activity

Disadvantages: activities are more individualistic and difficult to link together

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Advantages: can be engaging for students

Disadvantages: may not involve many numeracy or literacy skills

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Advantages: interesting art lesson for students, can be used for storytelling.

Disadvantages: difficult to include details of the story. (eg; porridge, sleeping on the bed)

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Spoon puppets are great for story telling and pretend play. For todays craft we made Goldilocks and The Three Bears puppets from wooden spoons. They are really easy and cheap to make and we had lots of fun retelling and making up our own versions of the story with them.

We have lots more bear themed activities here. Maybe make a bear snack to eat whilst watching the puppet show!

These spoon puppets are perfect for retelling the simple fairy tale of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. They are hard wearing and easy to make.

We also have a few more puppets that you might like to take a look at:
There is something special about putting on a performance as a child. I remember doing many many shows with my parents and their friends as the audience whe n I was younger.

To make Goldilocks and the Three Bears spoon puppets you will need:(affiliate links)

1. Paint three spoons in brown (for the three bears). Paint the fourth spoon in a skin colour. Leave to dry.

2. Paint ears onto the brown spoons using a lighter shade of brown and give Goldilocks some yellow hair. Paint a bow tie on baby bear, a flower in mummy bears hair and a tie on daddy bear. Give Goldilocks some rosy cheeks. Leave to dry.

3. Once completely dry add facial details using sharpie marker pens. I also added bows in Goldilocks hair and went around the edge of the ears, flower and ties to make them stand out.

4. Cover the spoons in a coat of mod podge to seal and protect your spoon puppets.

SHOW TIME! Enjoy using your new puppets to act out the story of 'Goldilocks and The Three Bears'. We had fun creating our own stories too!

These spoon puppets would look lovely with ears made from felt stuck on or real wool for hair. I choose not to add anything to our puppets as I knew it wouldn't be long before all the extras were pulled off and I wanted the puppets to last.

You might be interested in these links:

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Goldilocks and the Three Bears Spoon Puppets

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Spoon puppets are great for story telling and pretend play. For todays craft we made Goldilocks and The Three Bears puppets from wooden spoons. They are really easy and cheap to make and we had lots of fun retelling and making up our own versions of the story with them.

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Advantages: tools are simple and easily available

Disadvantages: materials seems flimsy

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This STEM activity is geared at lower elementary kids and I am so excited to share some details about it! I think it is my favorite STEM tale activity so far. STEM tales introduce the youngest budding engineers to STEM activity, by taking a familiar story and using it to walk them through the engineering design process. Do you love telling and re-telling stories with your kids? Do you ever change the ending to spice it up a bit? That's exactly what we do with STEM tales!

The 8-page book provides an alternative ending to this story, in which your students need to help make a bed for Goldilocks! Goldilocks is simply a printed out figure, which you can add weigh to with either small masses, pennies, or washers.

Using whatever crafting materials you have handy (index cards and tape are really all that is needed, but feel free to use other supplies as well), create a new bed for Goldilocks!

Is it large enough? Will it hold the weigh to of the figure? You will be surprised at the designs your students come up with!

After Golidlocks has tested out the beds, it's time to introduce the bear family to the challenge (mama, papa, and baby, who is the same size as Golidlocks).

You will add heavier weights to mama and papa bear, and then test the designs again. This is a great way to demonstrate why it's important to know your design criteria before starting a STEM challenge! Mama bear may fit on some and not others, or papa bear may fit but weigh too much and collapse the bed!

Here is the link to the resource, which I hope you check out!

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stem activities and resources for teachers

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This STEM activity is geared at lower elementary kids and I am so excited to share some details about it! I think it is my favorite STEM tale activity so far. STEM tales introduce the youngest budding engineers to STEM activity, by taking a familiar story and using it to walk them through the engineering design process.