I'm Going on a Bear Hunt!

okay...so not really...but if you read the poem in my earlier post "Do You Remember" you'll know that my sisters and I went on many, many bear hunts as children. Inspired by the book "I'm Going on a Bear Hunt" by Sandra Stroner Silvulich...we took the words from these pages to the real outdoors. We'd spend ALL day creating and plotting our course throughout the yard, and if you aren't familiar with this particular story...there are mountains to look over, trees to climb, marshes to trek, rivers to swim and caves to creep into. Lucky for us, we had a hill to make our mountain and plenty of trees to climb. The others were a little tricky at times, but we made the most of it...There was a portion of the yard that would retain enough water to make a decent mud hole...and this mud hole consisted of that black, sticky mud. Perfect for our bear adventure! Our river came about by filling up this ditch that ran in front of the house with the water hose if it wasn't already prepared by rain...and lastly, our cave. My mother used to make tomato cages out of fence wire simply by rolling a short bit into large tubes. We'd take these cages, lay them on their sides and cover them with a tarp. The tarp was never enough though, for we'd have to make this bear cave as real as possible! In doing so, we'd rake big piles of sticks and leaves all on top of our tarp-covered cages...at last, a masterpiece course! Once everything was set in place and as perfect as can be...we'd all go marching all over the yard, chanting our lyrics "Going on a Bear Hunt, Going on a Bear Hunt! I'm not scared! I'm not scared! Gonna catch a big one! Gonna catch a big one!...and so on and so on... We'd go up our mountain, we'd climb our tree to see what we could see...we'd march through the marshes and the tall grass, we'd swim the river wide and then creep into our cave...And honestly, at this point...I do believe we had convinced ourselves that a bear would be in this cave, because we'd seriously get scared, scream like little girls scream and run all the way back through the course... back to the river, through the marshes, up the tree and over the mountain ...all the way back home. I can still hear us giggling as we reached our brick-walled patio to safety... and then we'd do it all over again, and again...

This favorite book of ours actually belonged to our town library...and I do believe we would check it out on every visit. Not quite sure why we never owned a copy. A few years ago, Rachel gave me one newly titled "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen. If you never have experienced this book, I highly recommend you getting a copy for yourself or your kids, go have an adventure and find that bear like we did!