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Come find out some incredible grizzly bear facts! Your kids will love meeting this majestic animal in its natural habitat – the forests of North America.
Read on for a full grizzly bear unit study complete with books, activities, and media for elementary students.
We took an up close look (well, as close as you’d want to get) at one of the greatest North American predators:Â The Grizzly Bear!
My son took an interest in grizzly bears when we began our North America unit this year. It was a great choice!
Grizzlies are a great animal to learn about. There is a lot of information readily available for kids. I’ve gathered several resources for you to create a fun and educational unit study for your homeschool!
Research Facts About Grizzly Bears
When we are ready to dig into a new unit, we always start with a few books. I didn’t find very many books about grizzlies, but the ones I did find were fantastic.
Four recommendations:
Books About Grizzly Bears
Grizzly Bears by Gail Gibbons
We love Gail Gibbons’ books. There seems to be one for every subject, and they’re beautifully illustrated and full of interesting facts.
Eat Like a Bear by April Pulley Sayre and Steve Jenkins
This picture book was more like a story book and chock-full of bear facts. A very engaging read for younger children.
Grizzly Bears (Predators) by Barbara Taylor
The oldest enjoyed seeing real pictures of these amazing animals. This book has all the facts, and wasn’t too scary – even though it has an intimidating title and cover.
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Helen Oxenbury and Michael Rosen
While this book doesn’t contain 100 grizzly bear facts, it will inspire music and movement activities related to the unit. This is one that all of my children enjoy together – from age 2 to 2nd grade!
Find Facts about Grizzly Bears on a Field Trip!
Be a Grizzly Bear in the Woods:
Do you have a park or trail near your home? Practice being a grizzly bear in the woods!
- Run on all fours and rear up on your hind legs, climb a tree, and growl and roar as loud as you can!
- Find what bears would like to eat, and look for burrows in the ground and other signs of animals.
- Look for a safe place to hibernate for the winter!
Of course, we also had to practice rolling up into a ball to protect ourselves from a grizzly attack – so they know we aren’t aggressive. Gross motor practice at its best.
Find Bear Tracks:
We don’t have grizzly bears in Florida, but we do have black bears. We checked out their tracks at our local nature center and took a walk in the cypress forest.
Bears live all over the US. Check the parks and nature centers by you for information on the bears in your area.
No bears around? If you’re in a city, check out bears at your closest zoo!
Learn About Bear Habitats:
Over at the children’s museum we had fun role-playing in “Alaska” (the museum’s Four Seasons, Winter exhibit).
He told me that there were no bears around, though, because they would be hibernating!
Grizzly Bear Crafts & Activities
We loved visiting our local children’s museum for their “Going on a Bear Hunt” crafts and activities.
I’m sure you could put these together at home if you are creatively inclined – or if your kids will commit to playing with something for more than five minutes. The Art Room at the museum is a total sanity saver for me.Â
Chocolate Playdoh with Bear Shapes
Make your own no-cook chocolate dough and use safety scissors, patterned rolling pins,and bear shaped cookie cutters to experiment with shapes and patterns.
Bear Hunt Sensory Bin
He loved reenacting the “Going on a Bear Hunt” poem in this bin. Fill yours with plastic faux wood chips for dirt (you could use wood chips or dirt at home), shredded green paper for the tall wavy grass, a plastic blue puddle, cotton batting for the snowstorm, and plastic trees and bears.
Bear Hunt Map – Our favorite. He worked so hard on this little map of the forest. Drawing little dashes with brown marker, grass cut from green paper, a blue river, brown paint mud, popsicle stick and paper forest, white paint snowstorm, and a brown construction paper cave with a bear. Then I promptly left it at the museum. Gah! So we had to recreate it at home.
You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now. No tears, though. Every time I leave something at the museum it gets a little easier…
Grizzly Bear Facts on YouTube
See the mighty grizzly bear and learn all about grizzlies with resources like The San Diego Zoo, Wild Kratts, and Wild Kingdom. Roughly 20 minutes of Grizzly Bear facts that will not scare your young children.
Grizzly Bear YouTube Playlist on YouTube
Create a Lapbook Full of Grizzly Bear Facts!
I am thrilled that my oldest enjoyed making his first lapbook. He liked having a single, long-term project that brought everything together.
We worked on it little-by-little over the two weeks we spent learning about the grizzly bear, revisiting books and video resources as we went.
If you’re not familiar, a lapbook is visual report made out of a shutter-folded file folder containing several inserts. Awesome stuff about lapbooks:
√ Meaningful fine motor practice with cutting, gluing, and folding inserts
√ Handwriting practice in short, managable spurts
√ Organizing facts from various sources
√ Explaining and illustrating details you’ve learned
√ Synthesizing information to create a complete project
We used a few foldables from each of these two free printable resources:
All About Grizzly Bears Lapbook from Creative Learning Fun
Free Bear Lapbook from Homeschool Share
*While I love all the Pinterest Perfect lapbook samples by other bloggers, I’m not sure how many kinderkids are actually cutting and pasting so nicely. Could some of these be parent reports?!? NO!
Ours might be a bit wonky looking, but it was made by five-year-old fingers from start to finish. Real glue, no sticks or stickers. Gotta work on those fine motor skills!
Are there Grizzly Bears in your neck of the woods? Let me know in the comments below!
Related ideas from the Resource Room:
- North America Unit & Streaming Resources
- Jan Brett Author Study +8 Page FREE Printable Pack!
- Easy and FUN Going on a Bear Hunt Activities!
Ashley helps parents who want to homeschool find the resources they need to successfully teach their children. Ashley is a former teacher, current homeschooler, published author, and designer behind Circle Time with Miss Fox printables as well as the creator of this website, The Homeschool Resource Room.
Thank you for this post! I especially love the idea of the bear hunt map.
Glad you liked it 🙂 The map was a big hit.
You’re hilarious. Loved this post. Thanks for the helpful tips and great links.
The kids give me plenty of great material! Glad you found this useful 🙂