Teddy Bear Day Memory Game for Preschoolers
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Teddy Bear Day is September 6. I think it is a great opportunity to celebrate this special toy with your students in a fun, educational way, and to teach them the story behind this much-loved toy. This FREE memory game will bring fun to your classroom and friendly competition among your preschoolers as they work on important skills that will support their overall development. It includes three pages of nine cards each, and you can find it at the end of this post, so be sure to grab it.
Story Behind the Teddy Bear
Disclaimer: This story has been taken from the National Park Service website.
The Teddy Bear was invented in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt. According to history, former President Theodore Roosevelt was on a bear-hunting trip near Onward, Mississippi, on November 14, 1902. Roosevelt cornered and tied a baby black bear to a willow tree and was urged to shoot it, but he refused. The news spread quickly through newspaper articles recounting the story of the president who refused to shoot a bear.
Clifford Berryman, a political cartoonist, read the article and decided to mock President Roosevelt with a cartoon that appeared in the Washington Post on November 16, 1902.
Morris Michtom, a Brooklyn candy shop owner, saw the cartoon and had an idea. He and his wife, Rose, also made stuffed animals, and they decided to create a stuffed bear and dedicate it to the president who refused to shoot a bear. He called it ‘Teddy’s Bear’.
After Roosevelt gave permission to use his name, Michtom mass-produced the toy bears, which were so popular that he soon founded the Ideal Toy Company. To this day, the Teddy Bear remains popular worldwide, and its origin can be traced back to Theodore’s fateful hunting trip in 1902.
You can show your children the story presented in a simple video on YouTube.
Teddy Bear Day Memory Game
One activity preschoolers really enjoy is playing memory games. This activity is not only fun and easy to prepare, but also educational. It also helps children pay attention to details to recognize pairs of cards, which helps improve visual discrimination and strengthen concentration, one-to-one correspondence, focus, and memory. Avoid frustration and failure in your students by considering their level of maturity, pairing children at a similar level, and matching the number of cards to what each pair can handle. You don’t have to use all of them. Just remember to always use one pair of each card.
If your preschoolers have been exposed to other memory games, they’ll probably be able to work independently. However, for new students or children who are not familiar with these types of games, your guidance is.
How to Prepare the Teddy Bear Memory Game
This game’s cards must be durable and strong, because the children will manipulate them in any kind of way, and you want them to last a long time. Once they’re ready, you might want to place them in a small basket, a pencil case, or a Ziploc bag so they stay together and you don’t lose any cards.
To get this Teddy Bear Memory Game ready, you will need these materials:
- FREE Teddy Memory Game (found at the end of this post).
- printer
- White cardstock
- Scissors
- Laminator
- Laminator sheets
Print two sets of each page on white cardstock. Then cut out and laminate each tile to protect it and make it last longer. That way you can store the game in a pencil case or a Ziploc bag to protect it and use it year after year.
How to Play the Teddy Bear Day Memory Game
To start, lay out the cards face down in rows and columns so your preschoolers can only see the backside, and invite them to join you for a matching game!
Keep it simple and start like a traditional memory game: children take turns selecting two cards to turn over, trying to make a match. If a match is made, then the preschooler gets to keep the set of cards. If not, then the cards have to be turned back over, and the next preschooler takes the turn.
Books About Teddy Bears
If you have read some of my articles, you probably know by now that I am a huge fan and user of storybooks for everything, and I wanted to include some of my favorite books about teddy bears.
Below are some of my favorite books about teddy bears. You can find them at your local library, used bookstore, and on Amazon. If you want to buy some, click the titles, and my affiliate links will take you directly to the right page.
- The Teddy Bear by David McPhail. This is the wonderful story of a friend who is lost and found and lost and found again, and of a little boy who begins to understand the meaning of compassion.
- Teddy Bear Patterns by Barbara Barbieri McGrath. Using rhyming verse to explain the concepts illustrated by the colorful teddies, this simple book helps children to sort by color, arrange into patterns, and discover how they can use patterns to skip count, add, and even multiply, before trying their hand at creating a pattern of their own.
- The Teddy Bears’ Picnic by Jerry Garcia. This book illustrates the all-time favorite song, with singing, dancing, and picnicking teddy bears and a slight ’60s twist.
- The Teddy Bears’ Picnic by Jimmy Kennedy. This is an adaptation of the previous book.
Pin It For Later
If you are in a rush and don’t have time to read the post and download the printable but want to save it for later, pin this to your Math board on Pinterest for later.
Don’t forget to grab your free Teddy Bear Day Memory Game printable by clicking on the link below!
Then check out other FREE memory games and printables to expand your activity collection and help your preschoolers have fun while learning.
- Easter Memory Game
- Mother’s Day Memory Game
- St. Patrick’s Day Memory Game
- The Kissing Hand Memory Game
- Valentine’s Day Memory Game
I hope you enjoy this free activity and that it helps you have fun with your preschoolers on Teddy Bear Day.
Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.
Love,
P.S. Please let me know if you like any of these ideas, if they worked for you, or if you think I need to add or replace something. My goal is to help you in any way I can, and I don’t like anything more than posting something you might find helpful. Also, if you have different ideas and want to share them, I’d love to post them as well.
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