Bears, Bears, Everywhere!

by Koplow, Lesley

• ISBN13: 9780807749036
• ISBN10: 0807749036
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-09-01
• Publisher: Teachers College Pr
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

Lesley Koplow offers teachers a proven way of addressing social and emotional issues in the classroom. In Bears, Bears Everywhere!, Koplow shares innovative strategies for integrating Teddy Bears into classroom life and the curriculum itself to help teachers address unresolved emotional issues that hinder children's socialization and learning processes. She explains how using Teddy Bears as transitional objects can help children connect to their feelings and express them in constructive ways, establishing a safe and supportive learning environment. To help teachers integrate the Teddy Bear method into core curriculum, the text includes lesson plans, grade-specific activities (pre-K-5th grade), sample dialogue, children's writing and drawing, and full-color photographs. Offering both a conceptual framework and a practical blueprint, this helpful book: Provides specific techniques and curriculum strategies to promote emotional well-being and pro-social behavior with both young children and school-age students. Helps teachers to integrate bears into daily routines, including arrival, story time, rest time, choice time, group time, transitions, and departure. Examines the use of bears as a bridge to literacy. Shares the author's experience using bears in the upper grades with students who have experienced trauma (post-9/11), homelessness, recent immigration, or other unsettling circumstances.

Author Biography

Lesley Koplow is the director of the Center for Emotionally Responsive Practice at Bank Street College in New York City.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. viii
Introduction	p. ix
The Art of Relationship, the Science of the Brain	p. 1
Art and Science	p. 1
Making Connections	p. 1
Comfort Through Emotional Storms	p. 3
Stress and the Developing Child	p. 4
School as a Healing Force	p. 6
What Teddy Bears Bring	p. 7
Transitional Objects Within the Holding Environment of the Classroom	p. 8
How Transitional Objects Work	p. 8
Object Constancy	p. 9
When Children Do Without	p. 10
The Classroom as Holding Environment	p. 11
Holding the Teddy Bears	p. 14
Welcoming Teddy Bears in the Classroom	p. 16
Choosing Bears	p. 16
Introducing the Children to the Bears	p. 17
Listening for Children's Responsive Voice	p. 21
Responding to the Children's Voices: Making the Classroom Safe for Bears	p. 22
Working with Children's Responses: Coping with a Fire at School	p. 24
Working with Children's Voices: Responding to a Teacher's Absence	p. 25
Every Bear Has His Story	p. 28
Name and Age	p. 28
Distinguishing Features	p. 29
A Place to Be	p. 31
Every Child Has Her Story	p. 32
Teacher-Parent-Teddy Bear	p. 34
Bears as a Bridge to Literacy	p. 37
Literacy and Well-Being	p. 37
Playing with Teddy	p. 39
Symbol for a Symbol: Drawing Teddy	p. 39
Reading to Bears in the Early-Grade Classroom	p. 44
Writing About Teddy	p. 48
Writing to Teddy	p. 49
The Security Factor	p. 50
Bears in Pre-K and Kindergarten: Working with Developmentally Salient Themes	p. 51
New Places, New Times	p. 52
Bears Make a Wish	p. 53
Understanding Friendship	p. 55
A Story of Emergent Curriculum: The Wedding	p. 56
The Gifts of Emergent Curriculum	p. 60
Bears in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Grades: Working with Meaningful Common Ground Themes	p. 61
Teddy's World of Today	p. 62
Imagining Teddy's Past	p. 63
Teddy in the Future	p. 65
The Story of an Emergent Theme: Hurting and Healing	p. 67
The Story of Bears in the Upper Grades	p. 69
A Town and Its Inhabitants	p. 71
When Bears Loop	p. 76
Bears in Bad Times	p. 77
Bears, Bears Everywhere	p. 77
Reaching In/Reaching Out	p. 80
Bears Say Good-Bye	p. 82
Bears Get Ready: The Transition Out	p. 83
Saying Good-Bye: Real and Pretend	p. 86
Courtesy of Teddy Bears	p. 89
Beartown Documents	p. 91
Bear-Focused Children's Books	p. 97
References	p. 99
Children's Books Cited	p. 101
For Further Reading	p. 103
Index	p. 105
About the Author	p. 110
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.