Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Picture Puffin) - Bill Martin

...on the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" which was written by Bill Martin, Jr and the pictures by Eric Carle. This book is very much based on colours and I think it is brilliant in the way that it dedicates each page to just one colour and does rhyme.

=== The Story ===

It starts with a picture of a brown bear taking over the whole two pages, the text says…"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do ...
...rhyming of the question…"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see"

Mathematical Development - This could be counting the number of animals at the end, or just counting each animal on the page, maybe counting the words, Maths isn't just about counting etc…it does include shape, space, measures, so you could actually go through the book and pick out all the shapes.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World - ... more

Hello people, I am writing my review based on the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" which was written by Bill Martin, Jr and the pictures by Eric Carle. This book is very much based on colours and I think it is brilliant in the way that it dedicates each page to just one colour and does rhyme.

The Story

It starts with a picture of a brown bear taking over the whole two pages, the text says…"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?? Then the brown bear says "I see a red bird looking at me." Then when you turn the page it there is off course a picture of a red bird and the same question is asked "Red bird, Red bird, what do you see?" the Red bird says "I see a yellow duck looking at me". Then again turn the page and there is a picture of a yellow duck. Again the duck takes up the whole two pages and the question is asked "Yellow Duck, yellow duck, what do you see?" and the duck says "I see a blue horse looking at me" turn the page and there is a blue horse and the question is asked again and so on…till when it comes to "I see children looking at me" then the children say all the animals and there colours of what they can see!!
(Brown bear, a red bird, a yellow duck, a blue horse, a green frog, a purple car, a white dog, a black sheep, a goldfish and a monkey) so you can see a lot of the colours are in the book. Which are nice and bold and bright for the child/ren.

This book also encourages the national curriculum

For people that are not aware of the national curriculum, there are 6 areas at which as childcare workers you have to be aware of in order to plan activities around. Each area has its own aspect of learning for the foundation stage, there are learning goals to follow, but mainly it is there to help plan activities for the child/ren to help there development in all different areas. Most of the areas link together for certain activities. Below I have written each area and how the book could maybe encourage that development.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development - This could be that the child is engaging in the story book and getting involved in questions being asked etc… This could be done at home or in a nursery setting.

Communication, Language and Literacy - This could be the child looking at the book, getting to know the words, saying the words etc…also it includes the rhyming of the question…"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see"

Mathematical Development - This could be counting the number of animals at the end, or just counting each animal on the page, maybe counting the words, Maths isn't just about counting etc…it does include shape, space, measures, so you could actually go through the book and pick out all the shapes.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World - This could be anything in the book, from showing that they are interested by facial expressions, their curiosity, they can describe what is going to happen next…

Physical Development - After reading the book maybe the child/ren would like to create there own story like books, by painting, drawing etc… using there

Creative Development - This could link in with Physical development as the child/ren can create there own stories just by doing drawings, painting or any sort of craft including sticking different textures etc…

I think this is a fantastic book, it could be used if you was about to take your child/ren to the zoo or an animal park, it is full of animals. There is so much you could do with this book to encourage children to learn there colours, when I started my training to be a childcare practitioner I was in this reception class and the teacher read this book, taking her time on each page, getting every child involved, even asking a few at a time to go and find something around the classroom that was the same colour of the page that we was on, just to give the children a better understanding. The children loved it, they were so engaged to the book and activity, normally children would get bored and start fidgeting but the children were so well behave you could tell that the teacher was an amazing teacher and I am glad that I had the chance to work along side her and pick up some tips from her!!
(So there's an idea, read the book and get the child/ren to find an object of the same colour)

Here is the link if you are interested in seeing what the book is like and being read by Bill Martin with quite a song…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdHCYgO9zh8
I found that quite interesting and added some new meaning to the book, that you can make it into a song to help encourage the child/ren memory with the colours.

This book was actually created in 1967, wow it's older than me and I love it, it really is a good one to read no matter how old you are, you can have so much fun with your child/ren reading this book together. I find that the older books are the best without a doubt, they are so much fun and encouraging.

Taken from website - http://www.eric-carle.com/ECbooks1.html
Appealing animals in bold colors are seen and named in a rhyming question-and-response text that delights as it invites young readers and listeners to participate actively.

ISBN - 0-14-050296-3
I grabbed this book from my local bookshop for £2.99.
I have quite a big book, which is good, but the disadvantage is that the text is not that big, so for children that are learning to read the text would have been better if it was bigger and bolder for the children.

Books also in picture Puffin by Eric Carle includes -
The Bad-tempered ladybird
Do you want to be my friend?
Draw me a star
Little cloud
The mixed-up chameleon
1, 2, 3, To the zoo
The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I havent read much of Bill Martin but I do know that he has other books and the other one that springs to mind is Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear?

Thanks for reading
Mell (June 2008) 

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