Bear Hunt Obstacle Course

Posted on by mrsshaia

Bear Hunt

I’ve had A Librarian Less Ordinary’s Bear Hunt Idea in my file for one year. Finally I worked out the details in my head and had time to work on the props during my program break…

For the program itself I read the book to the children. There’s a new pop-up edition, so I used that one. Then we sang a couple of bear hunt songs:

  • “The Bear Hunt” by The Learning Station from Here We Go Loopty Loo
  • “The Cool Bear Hunt” by Dr. Jean from Dr. Jean Sings Silly Songs
  • “Goin’ on a Bear Hunt” by Greg & Steve from Kids in Action

As I did that in the program room my co-workers placed the props in the children’s room…

I had the children line up and I lead them through the obstacle course:

Bear Hunt (11)
The children entered the children’s room by crawling under the “Pine Cone Forest” table.

 

Bear Hunt (1)
The children tromped through the dark forest, then “swam” through the river.

 

Bear Hunt (2)
The children had to put on their snowsuits and brave the snowstorm. (There were wooden dowels with snowflake beads, white streamers, and snow balls. The picture doesn’t really show it.)

 

Bear Hunt (7)
Finally we mucked through the mud and tip toed to the cave…

 

Bear Hunt (3)
I used two garbage bags and covered a table. I strung star lights under the table and had a scary bear (about 4 inches tall) hiding in the cave.

 

Bear Hunt (6)
The kids ran through the obstacle course for about a half hour, singing and playing. The parents started getting hungry, so I had to start cleaning up so the kids would get their coats on!

It took about two hours of prep time to paint the bulletin board paper and make the wooden dowel props. I found 4′ dowels at Home Depot and tied crepe paper of different colors on each one. I was banking on throwing all the props away at the end of the program, but amazingly they all survived! I will be able to reuse them for another idea…

Such as:

  • Rosie’s Walk
  • Ghost Hunt
  • Mammoth Hunt
  • Lion Hunt
  • Martian Hunt
  • Monster Hunt
  • Dinosaur Hunt
  • Looking for Dracula (by Charlotte Diamond)

For more storytime ideas, check out Kim’s Literary Commentary. She’s hosting this week’s Flannel Friday. To find out more about Flannel Friday, check out the website, the Pinterest board, and the Facebook Group.