BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE

BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR, WHAT DO YOU SEE? Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is a story about animals and colours with a simple rhyming text. It is ideal for presenting or revising colours and animals. The story is structured around the popular question/answer technique providing repetition of the question……..what do you see? And the answer I see…. Children naturally acquire this question and answer when the story is read aloud. The simple repetitive text and superb illustrations allow children to predict the story and join in spontaneously during the storytelling and thereby gain confidence. The infectious rhythm of the repetitive phrases helps children develop their awareness of stress and intonation as well as the pronunciation of individual words. Main activities: Revising or introducing colours and animal words Story telling / reading To make a class book Linguistic objectives: Skills: Listening: for general understanding and for specific information Speaking: participating in storytelling, asking questions, reading aloud Reading: for repeating Writing: labeling, making a class book Function/structures: Asking and answering questions: What do you see? I see … etc. Describing using correct word order: colour + noun Vocabulary Animals: bear, bird, duck, horse, frog, cat, dog, sheep, goldfish, monkey Colours: Brown, red, yellow, blue, green, purple, white, black, gold Pronunciation: Individual words stress Falling intonation on questions Materials: Reading book: Brown Bear, Brown bear, What Do you See? Author: Bill Martin, Jr. Illustrator: Eric Carle. ( if you don`t have the book, you can use the following link: ;feature=related or you can make your own book using the pictures given at the end of this document). Blu- Tack Blank paper and colured crayons for colour dictation Animal Flash (given at the end) Colours flash cards Worksheet with the animals in the story ( worksheet given at the end) LESSON ONE ( BEFORE READING THE STORY) Introducing the story: Show the pupils the cover of the book. Point to the bear and ask: What’s this? Encourage the reply, a bear, it’s a bear, it’s a brown bear and point to the title reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Repeat the whole title, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? miming see if necessary. Ask the students what the bear is looking at. Tell them they are going to find out later but first they have to revise and learn or revise colours and animals. PRESENTING/ REVISING COLOURS AND ANIMALS. Revise colours and animals with the flash cards. I propose the following games and activities: Holding up the colour cards or strips one by one, saying or eliciting the colour and fixing it on the board with Blu-Tack. Encourage children to repeat several times, chorally and individually, taking care they pay attention to the pronunciation. Once the cards are on the board, point to cards individually and ask children to repeat, first in order and then at ramdom, gradually building up speed as their competence and confidence develops. Depending on the level of pupils and time available, play some of the following games: Point to…: Put the colour cards around the classroom. Children say the colours as you stick them up. Give instructions, e.g. Point to purple! Point to brown! Children listen, look round the classroom and point to the correct card as fast as they can. This could be played as a team game. Listen and hold up: Distribute colour cards to pupils. If possible, make enough for all the pupils to have one each. Call out colours at ramdom, asking children holding the corresponding card to hold it up. Alternatively, they could come and stand in line at the front of the class as you call out the colours. You could then expand this game a s follows: Red sit down! Blue turn around! Red stand up! Colour dictation: Children will need a blank sheet of paper and colured crayons. Dictate colours. Children listen and colour. Make sure you keep a record of the colours and order in which you call them out! Check. You could ask pupils to exchange their sheets of paper and correct each other`s work. Depending on the level of the students you can write the colours words on the board for pupils to copy and match to their picture dictation. What’s missing?: Attach the colour cards to the board. Allow children a few minutes to look at them and then ask them to close their eyes. Remove a colour. Tell pupils to open their eyes and ask: What’s missing? To make this game more difficult remove two or three colur cards at a time. This game can also be played as a team game. Repeat if it’s true: Put the cards on the board. Point to one and say the colur, eg. Red/ It’s red. If you have said the correct colour, children repeat it. If not, they stay silent. The same activities will be carried out to practice the animals (If needed, you can spend more than one session learning or revising the vocabulary related) LESSON TWO (STORY TELLING) Revise colours and animals using any of the activities from lesson one. Story telling: What do you see? Hold up the book, point to the bear and ask: What do you see? Children should reply a brown bear. Tell pupils you are going to read the story. Point to the title and read this aloud. Turn to the colour double spread, point out and revise colours. Repeat the title on the title page. Turn to the double spread of brown bear. Begin reading the story aloud: Brown bear, brown bear what do you see? ( Turn the page) ‘I see…(pause and invite pupils to join in) a red bird, (repeat) I see a red bird (pause) looking at me’ Continue Red bird, red bird what do you see?’ (turn the page) I see… (invite pupils to predict) a yellow duck, (repeat) I see a yellow duck (pause) looking at me.’ Continue in this way gradually inviting pupils to join in with the question ‘what do you see?’ At the double spread, ‘Children, children, what do you see?’ ask: Where are the children? And elicit zoo or at the zoo. The final double spread offers a perfect opportunity for reviewing the key words of the text. Read the story again, this time taking care to respect and maintain the rhythm of the story and inviting the children to join in. Distribute the colour and animal flashcards. Make sure all pupils have a card. Read the story again without showing children the illustrations. As they hear the colour or animal that corresponds to their card they come to the front of the class and line up in order. Read one more time without showing the illustrations and children sit down as they hear their colour or animal. Lesson 3 (After reading) Read the story aloud inviting children to join in. Close the book and ask children if the can remember the order of the animals in the story. Distribute the colour and animal flashcards and invite pupils to put them on the board in the order of the story. Help as necessary. Distribute the colour and write worksheets and ask children to colour and label the animals. If necessary, write the words on the board for children to copy. If you do not want children to write, they can simply colour the animals. Check pupils’ understanding by asking: What`s number one? Encourage the reply: It`s a brown bear. Make a class book Explain to the pupils that they are going to make a class book based on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and What Do You See? Give the children a sheet of paper each and ask them to draw an animal of their choice to put in the book (or give photocopies with the animal pictures just to be painted). (Remember to show which way round the pages will be.) Next they colour their animal. When they have finished they stand up and say what their animal is. Invite the class to decide on a title for their book, collate the pages and staple together. Read the finished class book together or invite a pupil to do this. Invite the class to join in with the phrase I see a (colour + animal) looking at me after each question and turning of the pages. References: Brewster, J, Ellis, G, 2002 Tell it again, Penguin Books. Apart from this proposal you can find more ideas to use this book in the classroom at the following link: