There's a Bear on My Chair

Bear is sitting on Mouse's chair and in spite of his best efforts, Bear will not move. Mouse grows increasingly irate until he strops off, leaving Bear wondering where he has gone - until Mouse is found in Bear's house! This book is fun from the first page to the last! Even the front cover leaves us in no doubt that there is trouble ahead - Bear's smug, complacent smile and Mouse's increasingly irate expression offers the perfect opportunity to gather vocabulary and ideas before during and after reading! The text also offers a real reading context for the 'air' phoneme and its alternatives, making for a fun phonics lesson. Great fun could be had by creating and illustrating alternative stories for the adventures of these two creatures; after all, bear is left with a mouse in his house - although the rhyming here is more of a challenge! Seeing both sides of a situation and empathising with the feelings of others are important life lessons and There's a Bear on my Chair offers an excellent starting point. Older children could write from each character's viewpoint and explore their thoughts and feelings. My class were very keen to explore this and were relating mouse's feelings to personal situations. There were also a few 'confession' type tales of how they annoyed younger siblings using tactics very similar to those of bear! The bold use of colour in the illustrations is very appealing and engages children from start to finish. Picture book / Ages 3+ / Reviewed by Sue Wilsher, teacher.

Suggested Reading Age 3+