retell literacy center activity - Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

What do you love about your literacy center time? I love that our active literacy centers, like the retell center keep my kinders engaged in positive reading habits. This is how I created a 'Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear' retell activity to go in our retell center as an option for my kindergarten students. It was a combination of printing and adding velcro! My kinders get to choose the book(s) they want to retell while they are at this literacy center. They read, they act, they use lots of great vocabulary and are developing fantastic reading habits all while continuing to build their love of reading.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear Retell (Literacy Center Activity)

It's one of my favorite literacy centers and we usually introduce Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear in the fall. I like using this when my students are familiar with Brown Bear.

Here are the props I gathered rather inexpensively (and you can too) to bring the book alive once we knew it by heart. As a side note, the beanie babies were donated but I know you can easily find them at a garage sale or choose one from the plastic ones at the dollar store! I printed a set of clipart from an online site and added a square of velcro to the back. I wanted to focus on sequencing and looking at chunks of words in the animal sounds, and make it less about the "re-enacting." I created a large laminated poster with velcro spots for each of the animals. It folds up to go in the basket with the retell items when done.

Go back to read the Retell Literacy Center Directions {in case you missed it}

You can make this kindergarten activity yourself! Here are the materials you'll need...

Materials:

• Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear Printables {Free download}
• Optional Animals (Stuffed Animal or Plastic)
• Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr.

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More Retell Literacy Center Book Activities for Kindergarten

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Fresh Fall Leaves

Big Pumpkin

Cinderella

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

The Little Red Hen

The Very Quiet Cricket

Red Riding Hood

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Hansel and Gretel

The Gingerbread Man

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Fat Cat

Cookie's Week

The Doorbell Rang

The Three Little Pigs

Swimmy

See All

More Eric Carle Ideas

Injecting Rhyming into Your Day
Seeing Eric Carle's Influence Show Up in Student Writing

When do you like to read Polar Bear, Polar Bear with your class?

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- Leslie

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