The Bear

Last week, Sean and I were up watching TV when we heard the raccoons outside. Sean grabbed the broom and went outside to scare them away. I was surprised to see him run back inside and slam the door. His eyes were huge and he announced, "There's a bear outside!!" The bear continued to eat our garbage and then ended up going into our back yard. He wandered around and then jumped the back fence. The next day when we told the kids they were so excited. Sean went around the back yard to make sure that the bear had indeed left and this is when we found the claw marks on the back fence indicating that he had jumped over. I quickly made some bear paw prints out of construction paper thinking that the kids would find this entertaining to find. The kids came outside with their detective kits ready to investigate "The mystery of the black bear". They found the prints, although they kept exclaiming that the prints were made out of paper and that it was just silly. I guess they may be growing too wise to fool. We later went inside to make bear posters. Aiden's poster was encouraging the bears to come again because he really wants to take a picture of it himself. "Come again bear and eat our garbage" his poster said. Caileigh's poster said, "no bears allowed." At first, Aiden didn't want to make a poster because he said if he put writing on it the bears would know that a human made it and they wouldn't want to come back. I finally convinced him that it would be ok because I was hoping to sneak some printing practice into our activity. The bear did return several nights later as the evidence in the garbage showed, but we have not seen him since that first encounter.

{The Bear}

{Searching for paw prints}

{Making posters}

{Aiden's poster}

{Caileigh's poster}