Bear & Duck are Friends by Sue deGennaro
Published March 2023 by Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing
Overview
Sue DeGennaro brings us another beautifully written and illustrated story exploring themes of friendship, overcoming fears, and celebrating our individual differences.
Bear & Duck are Friends is illustrated with a delightful, joyful and gentle sensitivity, the pictures are filled with expression, a sense of fun and wonderful opportunities for discussion. While Duck smiles and dances with whimsy through-out, Bear’s character is filled with expression, fear, nerves, misery, and finally joy and confidence.
Duck is always ready to try new things, and Bear is not. He is filled with nerves, fear, and worry, he is clumsy and cautious. However, with the help of his confident friend Duck, he has a go. Filled with fabulous ‘confident learner language’ for example; ‘We will do this together’, ‘Bear you are not alone’, and ‘One step at a time’, Bear & Duck are Friends asks our readers to explore developing confidence and overcoming their own fears.
Bear & Duck are Friends is a wonderful read a-loud for early years, filled with descriptive language, accessible text and font, as well as a timeless story of what it means to show friendship. Simply beautiful!
Exploring themes of Identity & Belonging
Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of Identity (Children develop knowledgeable confident self-identities, and a positive sense of self-worth)
Bear & Duck are Friends invites children to explore their own individual abilities, differences and celebrate these. It also asks children to build confident learner skills and language including; trying new things, having a go, and stepping outside your comfort zone. This beautiful story also explores themes of friendship and overcoming fears. The illustrations of the character ‘Bear’ in the story has wonderful expressions for children to explore. (The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia V2.0, 2022).
Group Activity: Exploring expression with plasticine
You will need:
- Plasticine and scrap cardboard (approximately A5)
- Plastic cutting boards, or placemats are useful for rolling out plasticine (less mess) • A photo of each child showing a different expression (if you wish)
- Examples of coil, ball, pinched triangle in plasticine (if you wish)
What to do:
Read: Bear & Duck are Friends by Sue DeGennaro
Engage: Explore the illustrations of Bear and each expression he is showing in the story. You may wish to make a wordlist of his expressions, or take photos of children showing each expression.
Questions: How does Bear show his feelings? Can you show fear/misery/caution/worry? What does his face do? What does his body do? What do you do when you make a mistake/are worried/nervous? How does Duck help his friends?
Act: Act out the expressions you have listed or the expressions from the story (enthusiastic, cautious, queasy, uneasy, tired, delighted, terrified, nervous). Have the children use their whole bodies and facial expressions to express different emotions. (For example, when we feel sad our shoulders drop, our eyes and mouth droop down.)
Make: Give each child a word to draw or use photos you have taken previously showing different expressions. Using a 20cm ball of plasticine press out a circle or oval shape onto your card for the face. Then using small amounts of coloured plasticine show children how to roll balls, pinch triangle shapes, and roll coils to create facial features. Encourage children to use their reference photo or drawing to create their own plasticine ‘expression’ face.
Other ideas: You may wish to have children trace the words. Write out their expression word above or below their plasticine face and use the plasticine to create coils to ‘trace’ your expression word. Use AUSLAN signs to show each expression word.
Vocabulary
Explore page 10.
‘Bear, you are not alone,’ said Duck. ‘We will do this together. One step at a time.’
Make your own poster of statements that encourage each other. What words do confident learners say? What words do great friends use?
Other books
- Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae (ill. By Guy Parker-Rees)
- The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family by Ibithaj Muhammad
- Jetty Jumping by Andrea Rowe (ill. Hannah Sommerville)
- Lottie and Walter by Anna Walker
Useful References
Created by Ruth Thatcher
CBCA Committee Member