We love to dance, so I am always excited to find books that encourage us to get up and get moving. Today we had the opportunity to check out a fun book about a brightly colored and mischievous bear who loves to dance and move.

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Meet Bear!

I Am Bear was written by Ben Bailey Smith and illustrated by Sav Akyuz. This vibrantly colored book introduces readers to Bear, a bare bear who dresses up in a bright suit of purple hair. The author is also a rapper, so the rhyming text flows in a rap style rhythm. The illustrations are full of neon colors and sharp patterns and textures, bringing even more life to the funny animal characters. Kids will love the silly antics of Bear, and will soon be reading along with the peppy words.

Bear Moves was written by Ben Bailey Smith and illustrated by Sav Akyuz. In this entertaining sequel, Bear is back for more silly antics. Bear loves to dance, and throughout the book, he introduces kids to all kinds of fun dance moves. From the robot to the foxtrot, there are all kinds of dances to explore. Once again, the rhythmic text follows a rap style beat, while the vivid illustrations are full of bright colors and fun characters. Kids will especially enjoy all of the silly costumes that Bear puts on while doing the different dances.

Dance Party!

This book provides the perfect opportunity to have a dance party! Make a playlist with a wide variety of songs on it. Bear tries lots of different dance moves in the book, so make sure you have all kinds of music to dance to as well. Let kids go wild with their dance moves, or encourage them to try some of the dances that Bear does in the book. (If you aren’t familiar with the moves, you can easily find videos online).

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Act It Out!

These books have such a great rhythm to them that they are just begging to be acted out! Read the book out loud as if you performing it and have kids act out the actions on the page. Whether they are dancing or doing charades, they will have a great time coming up with performances!

Colorful Bear Art

The vibrant textured illustrations inspired us to create tissue paper collages. To start, I encouraged my daughter to look through the illustrations with me. We talked about the different colors and textures and chose some  of our favorite pictures. Next I laid out white paper and various colors of tissue paper. We painted glue across the paper and ripped and cut the different pieces of tissue paper, then added them to our pictures. Kids can use the illustrations as inspiration, or use their own imagination. You can use a spray bottle or an eye dropper to add small bits of water to the tissue paper on the page to make the colors mix and run.

Check out more fun bear crafts and activities here!

Move Like Bear

Bear loves to move. In both of these books, he is always moving around in fun ways. This gave us a perfect opportunity to have lots of fun with different movements. My daughter loves when I create obstacle courses for her, so I decided to use paw prints to set up movement challenges across our living room floor. I cut paw prints out of brown paper and laid them out to create a path from one end of the room to the other. Some of the paw prints were also laid out in different dance steps. Others encouraged her to follow simple commands like hopping on one foot or jumping with two feet. These were a great way to work on some gross motor skills while also having lots of fun!

Win Your Own Copy!

Thanks to Candlewick Press, I have the opportunity to share these fun books with one lucky winner! Head over to my Instagram and Twitter for instructions on how to win!

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