Merry Christmas, Big Hungry Bear!

Wow, the stores are overflowing with Christmas bling, bling! I love the lights and the beautiful colors illuminating the stores. It's a cheery and uplifting feeling to slowly walk through the stores and soak it all in.

I haven't forgotten about Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for my faith, family, friends, and our country. I look forward to celebrating life and the holidays with a positive outlook and finding the good in all things.

I thought I would share one of my favorite Christmas books that I enjoy reading to my students. It's called, Merry Christmas, Big Hungry Bear! By Don and Audrey Wood.

Little Mouse is getting ready for Christmas. He has a ton of presents under his tree and they are all for him!

But what about the the big, hungry bear that lives at the top of the hill. He loves presents and would do anything to get them.

Mouse quickly thinks of all the ways to protect his presents. But then he learns that Bear does not get any presents, not even from Santa Claus.

Mouse decides he is going to be brave and give some of his presents to Bear while bear is sleeping.

What a wonderful surprise when Mouse discovers that Bear has left Mouse a big, beautiful present.

As you read the last page you realize that Mouse does not open his present, but goes to bed. The reader is left wondering what is in the present that Mouse got from bear.

This makes a wonderful Extending the Reading Experience Activity for students.

After I read this story to my students I hand out a practice paper to each of them and ask them to write what they think is in the present. What do they think the bear gave to the mouse and why? I ask them not to talk about it with each other and use lots of good adjectives in their writing.

I edit their writing and then give them the writing sheet below to copy their edited writing onto. I have them color the present and then cut it out. I glue it onto construction paper and cut around it for a border. Then I hang them up in the room.

We gather together on the carpet and share and talk about what each student thought was in the present and why. We do this after our writing and not before so that we can enjoy the different guesses and thoughts of each student.

Please click on the picture below to print out a FREE copy. It will link you to teachers pay teachers where you can download a free copy from Picture Book Reviews With Writing Connections.
There are two types of writing lines provided.

Sample:

P.S.  I also updated and added my product "Holiday Treasured Thoughts for December" to my TPT store.  It's a fun writing project, with poems, and hugs to give to family and friends.  Please click on the picture below to have a look.  Thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kathy