Oso café, oso café, ¿qué ves ahí? / Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

A keen interest on animals in all three EC classes has prompted a unit on Eric Carle’s popular children’s picture book, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” It is a traditional beloved tale with predictable and repetitive text that the students enjoy reading over and over as they participate in the reading experience. A study on this classic favorite has offered the opportunity to link two concepts, animals and colors, to their Spanish language class experience.

During Spanish class, the students were introduced to the Spanish version of the book, Oso café, oso café, ¿qué ves ahí? Flashcards were created for each of the characters in the story and many games of matamoscas (fly swatters) were played to help the children learn and reinforce the Spanish word for each animal and its color. To foster their memory skills by concentrating and focusing, we played ¿Qué falta? (What’s missing?) using small figurines to represent each character. Additionally, a Bingo game was crafted to help support the children’s new knowledge. This game helped our young learners strengthen their Spanish vocabulary recall ability using the combination of both colors and animals.

As a culminating activity, each class was given the opportunity to craft three characters in the story. We collaborated with our talented art teacher, Amanda, who suggested creating papier mâché sculptures. During art class, the students crumbled newspaper into balls and taped it unto cardboard cutouts in the shape of each animal. Then, during Community Time, using a mixture of water and glue the students and teachers worked jointly to layer the “animals” with strips of paper in the color of that animal. 

Their finished creations will be displayed at the EC/K Art Installation that will be exhibited on the day of our Spring Concert. Make sure to ask your young learner which animal she, he or they worked on.

Vocabulary introduced:

oso café – brown bear

pájaro rojo – red bird

pato amarillo -  yellow duck

caballo azul – blue horse

rana verde – green frog

gato morado – purple cat

perro blanco – white dog

oveja negra – black sheep

pez dorado – gold fish

maestra – teacher

niños – children