Heroes of History: Theodore Roosevelt

 

BOOK:

In this one, we read the narrative non-fiction book, "Teddy: The Remarkable Tale of a President, a Cartoonist, a Toymaker and a Bear" by James Sage.This book is about how Theodore Roosevelt's refusal to shoot a captured bear led to a comic and how that comic led to a husband/wife pair creating Teddy Bears.

Honestly, this book probably falls in my top 20 books to read out loud just because it has several characters in it and also a New York accent to include. 

Songs:

We sang 2 different bear songs . . . 

If You're A Bear and You Know It

If you're a panda bear and you know it clap your paws...

If you're a polar bear and you know it show your teeth...

If you're a grizzly bear and you know it growl real loud...

If you're a black bear and you know it eat some berries... 

and then we sang

Let's Go On A Bear Hunt.

Lets go on a bear hunt

We're going to catch a big one

With Big green eyes

and a fuzzy tail

Oh lookie, -

And for this one we did. . . 

There's a gate . . .  gotta go through it

There's a rock . . . gotta climb over it

There's a river . . .  gotta swim across it

There's a log . . . gotta crawl under it

There's a cave . . . gotta go in it. 

And of course, that's where we find our bear and reverse the actions in the song all the way home.

Here's something neat

One thing I'm not sure I ever noticed or anyone else ever shared with me, it's entirely possible that without Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot that black bear, we would not have Winnie the Pooh.

Roosevelt's hunting trip happened in 1902 when he was invited by the Govenor of Mississippi to come hunt black bears on a trip. Winnie the Pooh wasn't published until 1926. The bear who inspired Winnie the Pooh, was bought by Harry Colebourn in August 1914 and that December was when Winnie went to live at the London Zoo. Sometime after that is when A.A.Milne and his son, Christopher Robin visited and named his teddy bear after Winnie, the beat at the zoo.

But it was the story about Theodore Roosevelt who inspired stuffed teddy bears and in the years following 1902, the toys became super popular.

So, it's just a thought.