This story study started with the original story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The preschoolers used stuffed animals to retell the tale in their play. By reading many different versions of the story we discussed the choices that authors and illustrators are able to make in their work. This led to real life practice in the dramatic play area when the children added their own story lines and ideas.
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| Looking at the story book for ideas |
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| Reading her "script" |
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| Creating "bear plans" |
One of the re-occurring themes that we recognized in all of the different versions of the story is that Papa Bear is big, Mama Bear is medium, and Baby Bear is small. The children were able to explore this math language and visualize these concepts through different activities in the classroom. Using non-standard measurements the children compared sizes in a variety of ways.
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| Recording their answers Using “porridge play-doh” we investigated math language and at the same time had some sensory fun with this gooey doh. The children created porridge bowls using small, medium, and large utensils and bowls, they counted out groups of three servings and practiced matching one to one. 
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Using the same characteristics that we read about in the stories, the children compared and sorted items into categories of soft and hard like the beds as well as big and small like the chairs.
At the writing table the children created their own books about Goldilocks. As a group we wrote a letter to Goldilocks warning her about the three bears.
We noticed that throughout the different stories the authors used different types of bears for the tale. This led us to non-fiction books about bears. We explored polar bears, brown bears, and black bears.
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| In the Bear Cave |
After exploring real bears we took data on some of the information we learned. The children were so proud to see how much of their words I was writing and how long their lists of knowledge were. Everything written was completely their ideas!
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| Comparing the different versions of the story |
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| Voting for a favorite To end our story study we celebrated with a Teddy Bear Picnic complete with bear cookies and honey!  |
