Corduroy Lesson Plans for Early Childhood ⋆

Do you love adding classic stories to your curriculum? Is it teddy bear week at school or are you looking to add more connections to story time at home? Either way, follow along for some great Corduroy lesson plans using Don Freeman’s wonderful book.

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All about Corduroy

Corduroy is a childhood classic book about a bear who wants to be loved. Follow along on his adventures throughout a department store to find his lost button and see if he ever finds a child to take him home. Do you also need your own Corduroy to love? Check out this boxed set for the book & bear!

Let’s dive into all of the fun you can have teaching little ones with this book.

Math

Time for Teddy Bear Graphing! For this activity combine snack time with math time and grab a few different flavors of Teddy Grahams. Give each child a small pile of cookies (at least 10) and have them sort by flavor. They can count how many of each they have and enter the information into this graph.

Teddy Graham crackers and a graph to chart how many of each flavor, — Teddy Bear Bar Graphing

Are your kiddos not quite ready for graphing? How about sorting buttons? Sort them into piles of a certain number, organize by color or just practice one-to-one counting.
New! Button counting worksheet

More button curriculum by The Chaos Manager

Science

Did you have your kids sort the buttons for their math lesson (above)? Did you know that sorting is also a skill needed for the foundation of science? Have students practice their observational skills and describe the buttons. What texture are they? How many holes are in the middle? If your students are a little older and won’t eat their science(!) try smaller buttons that come in a wider variety of sizes and shapes.

If your kids will eat their science (lol) try making a feely board for them. Use scraps of different materials (make sure to include some corduroy!) and attach them to a large poster board. Let the children feel the different items and help them to identify what they feel. Is it bumpy? Smooth? Does it look shiny?

Social-Emotional Skills

In the book, Corduroy travels throughout the department store looking for an extra button. He even takes an escalator to fully explore the store. If you are homeschooling and able to, take a field trip to the mall for a ride on an escalator! Most young kids haven’t been on one since they’re in a stroller for big shopping trips. I know my youngest is always so happy to take an escalator while we’re traveling! The mall is also an excellent place to reinforce other skills like hand holding, waiting in line and using a quiet voice and walking feet.

Motor Skills

Large Motor

*Make giant buttons out of different colors of poster board. Space them out on the floor. Have younger kids hop to a certain color button. Older students can use them in a Twister-style game, placing left or right hands/feet/etc. on a certain color button.

*Sing “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear” and have the students mimic the motions in the song.

Fine Motor Skills

*Make or purchase buttons for students to practice their lacing skills. If you’re making your own buttons, use cardstock or poster board to design buttons about 6 inches around. They should be large enough for kids to hold in one hand but not too big that they get floppy. Poke four large holes in the middle and have the kids use yarn or shoe laces to thread between the holes. You may also want to laminate them for durability. If you’re purchasing a set, check out these cute little jackets from Amazon!

*Have buttons out during playdough time. Have the students mix the buttons in and try to hide them. Alternatively, hide the buttons ahead of time in the dough (this also works really well with therapy putty) and have the kids uncover the buttons.

These Corduroy lesson plans are definitely very heavy on the button theme as well. Looking for more button books to go along with them? Check out some of my favorites about a few different types of buttons:

Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons

Belly Button Book!

Don’t Push the Button!

A handful of buttons: Picture book about family diversity