Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The Gingerbread Boy

I think my young audience was a bit dismayed and disturbed today when I got to the end of The Gingerbread Boy and they found out that the gingerbread boy was snapped up and gulped down by the sly fox. They identified with the runaway, and were surprised when they found out his career was over. But that's the way the story goes. "Gingerbread boys are made to be eaten!"

I used the Paul Galdone version, but there are several other good versions to choose from.



 

Jim Aylesworth and Barbara McClintock





Richard Egielski

Eric Kimmel and Megan Lloyd






For the flannelboard I made five little gingerbread men figures. Here's the rhyme we used:

Five little gingerbread men, sitting on a tray.
One jumped up and ran away.
"Run, run, run, fast as you can!
You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"

 Four little gingerbread men . . .  etc.

I also read them Who Ate All the Cookie Dough? by Karen Beaumont and Eugene Yelchin. This was a light-hearted selection with plenty of repetition and a surprise at the end (a pleasant one this time.) Mama Kangaroo finds her bowl of cookie dough empty and quizzes a variety of other animals: "Eeny Meeny Miney moe, Who ate all the cookie dough?" The jaunty rhyme will remind you of the chant, "Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?" and the kids will have fun trying to figure out who ate the cookie dough.
 
For the craft we made gingerbread men paper dolls, which gave the children a good chance to practice their scissor skills. You will need:
 
brown paper lunch bags
child scissors
crayons or markers
any other decorations you care to add
 
Cut a strip across the bag about 6 inches high, and then cut up the side to make a paper strip 16 and a half inches long. Accordion fold this into five sections, each about 3 and a half inches wide. The folds will follow the folds already in the bag.
 
Trace an outline of the gingerbread man on the top fold. I didn't cut this out, since I wanted the children to do that. Some of them did very well,and some needed help. Remind them not to cut around the hands and feet, or else the paper dolls won't be connected.
 
Once the g-men are cut out, the children can decorate them with crayon eyes, smiles, buttons and anything else they like. I also happened to have some little foam candy shapes on hand, so I let the kids glue those on too. Since I had very few children in attendance today (the day after Christmas), I didn't have to limit the number of candy pieces each used.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

The Gunniwolf Puppet Show

 Today being the third Thursday of the month, it was time for some after-school fun at the Orland Library. A puppet show is always popular, and we've done several that came from the NorthNet Library System, a consortium of northern California libraries. Those puppet kits were put together by Stephanie Stokes, and they are wonderful, but I've done all of them.  Time to come up with a puppet show of my own!

The story of the Gunniwolf is a perennial favorite with storytelling librarians. Many of us first encountered it in a picture book retelling by Wilhemina Harper, illustrated by William Weisner, but it an old, probably African-American folktale. In the story, a little girl is told by her mother to never, never go into the jungle, because if she does, the Gunniwolf might get her. The little girl promises she won't. But of course, she does, following a trail of pretty flowers that lead her into the jungle.

It's a very simple story, and one that is easily adapted as a puppet play.  In fact I already had a Gunniwolf. Many years ago a friend of mine named Jean Kibby, a retired librarian, gave me many of her handmade puppets, including a great green gunniwolf.  He came with a stick and styrofoam little girl. 

I wanted a different little girl, so I used that puppet for the mother, and made my own soft doll girl puppet.
 
 

Here's the little girl, with all the flowers she picked, meeting the Gunniwolf for the first time.  He wants her to sing that "guten, sweeten song" again.
 


The play was a big hit with the little ones, as you can see.

After the puppet show we made finger puppets.   I had some blank felt finger puppets in various colors that probably came from Oriental Trading Co.  The kids added wiggly eyes and felt beaks, eyebrows, mouths, and whatever other features they liked, as well as some feathers for those who wanted to get really fancy. Each finger puppet was a unique creation.


Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Pumpkin Time


It's pumpkin time again, and pumpkins are so fun to build a storytime around.  Our first book was Pumpkin Cat, by Anne Mortimer, which is one of those "how do pumpkins grow" books, featuring a cat and mouse duo. Another good title like this is It's Pumpkin Time by Zoe Hal.



The second book was Plumply Dumply Pumpkin, by Mary Serfozo and Valeria Petrone. Plumply Dumply has fun-to-read language ("Not a lumpy, bumpy pumpkin. Not a stumpy, grumpy pumpkin. But a sunny, scrumptious pumpkin.")  These two make a good pumpkin pair.

Also, off-theme but lots of fun, Dinosaur vs. the Library, by Bob Shea. Roar, roar!

Here are a couple of pumpkin time rhymes:

Pumpkin, Pumpkin (to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star)

Pumpkin, pumpkin, on the ground,
How'd you get so big and round?
You started as a seed so small,
Now you are a big round ball.
Pumpkin, pumpkin, on the ground,
How'd you get so big and round?

I'm a Little Pumpkin (to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot)

I'm a little pumpkin orange and round,  (Make a big circle with your arms around your middle)
Here is my stem, and here is the ground. ( Stick one finger up on top of your head, then gesture at the ground)
When I get all cut up, don't you shout, (Draw a circle around your tummy)
Just open me up and scoop me out!  (Pretend to scoop out your innards.)


The craft today is one of my favorites. I got this from Heather Tovey, so yay Heather! 

We started with a real pumpkin.  I cut around the top, lifted off the lid, and let all the kids look at, touch, and smell the seeds inside. Most of them were happy to get their fingers into a pumpkin. (Have some wipes and paper towels handy.) After we finished the touchy-feely demonstration, we made our own pumpkin pictures.



Start with a piece of 8.5" x 11" orange card stock or construction paper.  Cut out a large pumpkin shape.

Give each child a bottle of glue, some pieces of orange or yellow yarn, and some pumpkin seeds.  They can "draw" on the paper with the glue, then decorate it with yarn and seeds.  I love the tactile aspect of this craft.

The easiest and cheapest way to get your seeds is to clean out a pumpkin or winter squash the day before. Wash and dry the seeds so that they will be ready to glue.  I used the seeds from a butternut squash that I grew this summer.



Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Let's Give the Library Three Big Cheers!

Today's storytime was much the same as this one about the library last year. We read Lola at the Library by Anna McQuinn, and I wanted to also read Dinosaur vs. the Library by Bill Shea, but it's overdue. (Grrrr)  However, I shared a great a new book, perfect for storytime, that has nothing to do with libraries.

The book is Oh No! written by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Caldecott winner Eric Rohmann. (Not to be confused with Oh No! and Oh No Not Again, by Mac Barnet and Dan Santat, which are also awesome.) This is definitely a Caldecott-worthy book. The quality of the production is outstanding, right from the dust jacket flaps and endpapers through the entire book.

A frog, chased by a tiger, falls into a deep, deep hole. He is followed by a mouse, a loris, a sun bear, and a monkey, and none of them can get out--Oh no!  Just when it looks like the tiger is about to pounce on his helpless victims, an unexpected visitor arrives to save the day. This is a perfect storytime read-aloud book.

 We also did part of the Library Cheer and talked about how great libraries are.
For our craft we made bookmarks like the one you see here.  You will need:

colored card stock
patterned paper cut a little smaller than the card stock
stickers or other cut-outs
ribbon
glue and hole punch

The stars (and hearts) were cut with the Cricut machine. I cut a lot of things out by hand, but for small pieces like this a Cricut is ideal. 
The kids glued their bookmarks together and wrote their names on the back. I told the kids that if they didn't need a bookmark themselves, it would make a good gift, and one boy decided to give his to his big brother, who reads longer books.


Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Sheep A-Leaping

The sheep were leaping at storytime today.  We read Sheep in a Jeep, by Nancy Shaw, and Where's the Green Sheep, by Mem Fox. We also read Here Are My Hands, by Bill Martin, but that had nothing to do with sheep. On the flannelboard we had Baa Baa Black Sheep, which I made several years ago based on the pattern in The Flannel Board Storytelling Book by Judy Sierra.

We've been singing A-Hunting We Will Go every week.  Each time I pick out four animals from my collection of about 20 laminated animal + rhyming thing collection.  This week it was sheep-jeep, duck-truck, goat-boat, and dragon-wagon. Then we talked about which animals they might see on a farm around here, and which one didn't fit on the farm.

Here's a fingerplay rhyme, slightly altered from Hubbard's Cupboard.  Sing it to the tune of Five Green and Speckled Frogs:


Five fat and fluffy sheep (hold up five fingers)
In the pasture fast asleep (hands under head, lean over)
Their wool kept them cozy all night long (hug yourself)
Snore! Snore! (make snore sounds)
The farmer slipped away with one (hold up one finger)
And clipped the wool till he was done (clap)
Then there were 4 fat fluffy sheep (hold up four fingers)
Baa! Baa!

For a craft we made the ever-popular cotton ball sheep. Luckily I had a teen helper to cut out the bodies, heads, and legs. Just add cotton balls and two eyes!





Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Hoppy September!

Today we had a hopping good time at the Library and at Head Start. Once a month I take my show on the road and go to Orland's Chapman Head Start site to do two morning sessions and two afternoon sessions. In between I do the regular library pre-school storytime. It's great practice!


Our books were:

Who Hops?/Quien Salta? by Katie Davis.  When I ordered this book I didn't know I'd be getting a bi-lingual version, but I'm happy I did. At one of the Head Start session a teacher read the Spanish while I did the English. Great!


Boing! by Nick Bruel. This is a fun story about a little kangaroo, who fails at hopping until she cleans out her pouch, which is overloaded with ribbons, marbles, toys, buttons, and assorted other stuff. Once she gets that taken care of she can Boing! with the best of them.




Of course, we did some hoppy songs, like "I Saw a Little Rabbit" and "One little, two little, three little bunnies."  Here's the words for the first one:

I saw a little rabbit come hop, hop, hop.
I saw his long ears go flop, flop, flop.
I saw his little eyes goes blink, blink, blink.
I saw his little nos go twink, twink, twink.
I said, "Mr. Rabbit can you stay, stay, stay?"
He looked at me, and then he hopped away!

On the flannelboard I did a great new game: Miss Mouse in the House. I thought that I got the idea from Mel's Desk (she has lots of flannelboard ideas), but she doesn't have a pattern, so I borrowed my mouse from Rain makes Applesauce.  Or here's another version.  Mine looks like this:
Hide Miss Mouse behind one of the houses as you put them on the board, then chant:
Miss Mouse, Miss Mouse, Are you in the ____ house?
 Look under the house, she's not there?, try again.  Kids LOVE this.  It was an enormous success.  I did three rounds of hiding Miss Mouse with each group, which means I played the Miss Mouse game 15 times. Or maybe more---I'm not sure.

Make your own Miss Mouse, and have a fun time at storytime!

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Other voices, other blogs

Here at the Orland Free Library our homepage is our blog page. The library's homepage is actually a Wordpress blog, with links to the catalog, research resources, and other pages about the library.

Each of us on the staff takes a weekly turn to write for the blog. Wednesday is my day. Yesterday, since Google told me that it was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Julia Child, I decided to write about that icon of cooking, and highlight the books and videos we have about her in the library.

The majority of people who see these blog entries are people who get on the public computers, so I have always figured that no one reads the entries; they just breeze right on past in their haste to check their e-mail or Facebook. So I wrote the entry and went to lunch, just pausing a moment to take Julia's Kitchen Wisdom off the shelf, thinking I might check it out later.

Halfway through my lunch a co-worker came into the break room to ask if she could loan out the Julia Child book on my desk. "Of course," I answered.  Someone had actually read the blog entry and wanted the book! I was amazed---I never knew anyone read those entries. It was worth giving out the book to learn that someone had read what I wrote.

Garden Variety Librarian is not my only blog---I also have one called goldfields that I write about John Bidwell and northern California history. It has about the same number of subscribers, which is to say, very few. But if you are interested in Bidwell and the history he lived, take a look.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Great Big Basket o' Veggies!

It's harvest time in the garden again, and everything is producing. Every year in August I bring a big basket full of fruits and vegetables to the library to talk about with the kids. I have some great veggie eaters in my storytime group. Judging from their responses, they like every kind of fruit and vegetable.

Everything in the basket pictured here grew in my garden, except for the carrot. That came from the Farmers' Market. (There were two carrots, and more peppers and squash before I cut them up for the craft.  I should have taken the picture before storytime instead of after.)

Most of these items I picked just this morning. You can see corn, onions, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, basil, peaches and plums. And a cantaloupe. We talked about the different shapes and colors, about how not all tomatoes are red, and how peppers come in almost all colors.

We read two of my favorite veggie tales: Up, Down, and Around, by Katherine Ayres, and Growing Colors, by Bruce McMillan. On the flannelboard I put up pictures of fruit and we sang:

Strawberries, Peaches, Watermelon too
Good for me and good for you.
They are yummy, they are sweet,
They are such a tasty treat.
Strawberries, Peaches, Watermelon too
Good for me and good for you.   (sing to the tune of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star")

Then I held up various vegetables and we sang:

"Tomatoes, corn, and green beans too . . . "  and then  "Cucumbers, cantaloupe, peppers, too. . . . "  There's no end to the combinations you can sing about.  Seems to me this would be a good song to sing when you want to get your kids revved up to eat their vegetables.

We made zucchini prints for our craft. See last year's entry for pictures and instructions, including how to make paint stamp pads that can be stored in the refrigerator.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Owl in the Treetop

Last week our storytime was about owls and other creatures of the night. 

Probably my favorite song for learning the kids names is "Owl in the Treetop," sung to the tune of "Skip to My Lou."  Goes like this:

Owl in the treetop, hoo-hoo-hoo  (kids love hoo-hooing)
Owl in the treetop, hoo-hoo-hoo
Owl in the treetop, hoo-hoo-hoo
Who-who-who are you?

Point to a child and have them respond with their name, then sing again. I f you have too many kids to sing this for each child, put two or three together: "Who-who-who are you (response), and you (response), and you (response)?"


We read the books Quiet Night by Marilyn Singer, and I'm Not Cute, by Jonathan Allen. A couple other good books for this theme are Little Owl's Night, by Divya Srinivasan, and Owl Babies, by Martin Waddell.






 
The craft was a paper bag owl.  To make your owl, start by cutting the open end of a brown lunch bag down three inches and around three sides.


Fold the sides of the flap to make a triangle and fold down.  Stuff the bag lightly and then glue the flap down.  Now you are ready to "decorate" your owl.  Add eyes, beak, tummy, wings, and feather "ears." 

We have sheets of left over round white stickers from the labels that we put on CDs. I colored (well, I had a teen volunteer do it) the stickers yellow. The kids stuck the yellow stickers on little white paper circles and then colored in the eyes.    And there's your owl!!

Friday, July 6, 2012

The Great Stuffed Animal Sleepover Party!


A sleepover party for stuffed animals---doesn't that sound like fun?  It was our kick-off event on June 14 for the Summer Library Program, or the Summer Reading Club, or whatever you like to call it.  I started this post right after the party, and then forgot about it while I was waiting to get the pictures together.

Anyway . . . .


We welcomed the animals to the party by making tags for them that said:  "Hi! My name is _____ and I belong to ______." Each critter got a tag so we would know what belonged to whom for the overnight stay.

The kids sat on a couple big picnic quilts for storytime.

Once everyone was assembled, I taught them the Library Cheer. The cheer was written by Garrison Keillor and you can see librarian Margaret Miles demonstrating it on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jis3P6HFZ-M

Then we sang Alice the Camel, and read two great bedtime books:  Llama Llama Red Pajama, by Anna  Dewdney and Where’s my Teddy? by Jez Alborough. 

Here's a good little bedtime fingerplay:
This little child is going to bed  (hold up one finger)
Down on the pillow she lays her head  (lay the finger down on the palm of your other hand)
She wraps herself in a blanket tight  (wrap fingers around the one finger child)
And this is the way she sleeps all night. (hold out your two hands)
  
I told the story of The Tailor and the Hudgin, or, The Bed Just So.  There is an old book by Jeanne Hardendorff called The Bed Just So,where I got this story, but the book is out of print. It is my favorite "slightly-scary" story for the younger crowd. I often use it at Halloween, but it isn't really a Halloween story.  It's about a tailor trying to get some sleep and the mysterious hudgin who keeps him awake all night long, until he finds the solution right before his eyes.

After all the stories and songs we made glittery stars to hang from the ceiling, and then tucked the animals under the quilts.  Goodnight, critters!

The critters had a great time overnight in the library.

This was such a fun activity and really easy to do. We'll probably do it again!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Ladybug, Ladybug

Today was ladybug day at the library.  We Read Ladybug, Ladybug by Ruth Brown and Little Red Riding Hood from Lucy Cousins collection Yummy!  Then we had a ladybug song with ladybugs for the flannelboard. Sing this to the tune of Hush Little Baby.

Ladybug one, let's have some fun
Ladybug two, I like you
Ladybug three, Do you like me?
Ladybug four, do you have anymore?
Ladybug five, do the ladybug jive,
Ladybug six, you can walk on sticks,
Ladybug seven, fly up to heaven,
Ladybug eight, now don't be late,
Ladybug nine, I think you're fine,
Ladybug ten, Let's do it again!

You might be able to come up with better rhymes than I did. Feel free to change the words anyway that works for you.

I handed out the ten ladybugs and each child brought up the corresponding ladybug when I sang that line of the song. Of course, as the numbers got higher they needed some help figuring out how many spots the ladybug had. Since I had more than 20 kids today, we did the song twice so that everyone could get a chance to put a ladybug on the board.

The bugs are made of black and red felt. The red wings are glued on to the black base. The spots were made with a permanent black marker.

For a craft we made---you guessed it---ladybugs. The kids glued red wings and a black head on a white card, and then stuck on black spots. The black spots were actually white dots that are left over from circular labels that are printed to put on CDs and DVDs in the library. I've been saving these sheets of white dots (about 1 inch in diameter) for a long time,and I finally found a use for them! I had a teen volunteer color the dots black with a permanent marker.

I gave the children and parents the option of making more than one ladybug card if they wanted to make counting cards with a one-spot ladybug, a two-spot ladybug and so on. A few made two bugs with multiple spots, but no one took me up on the idea of a set of counting cards.









Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Continuing with the wonders of spring today, our theme was caterpillars and butterflies. I had a brand-new book to share: Ten Little Caterpillars, by Bill Martin and Lois Ehlert, with her usual big bold colorful illustrations.It was a great alternate to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which all the kids already know. The second book was Butterfly, Butterfly by Petr Horacek. That one has a nice big pop-up butterfly at the end.

We sang:

Little Arabella Miller
Found a fuzzy caterpillar.
First it crawled up on her mother,
Then up on her baby brother.
They said, "Arabella Miller,
Put away that caterpillar."

And:

Butterfly, butterfly happy all day, butterfly, butterfly fly, fly away. 
(Hook your thumbs together and make your hands into a butterfly that flutters as you sing.)
5 little butterflies sitting on the door
1 flew away and then there were four.

4 little butterflies sitting in a tree
1 flew away and then there were three.

3 little butterflies flying in the blue
1 flew away and then there were two.

2 little butterflies sitting in the sun
1 flew away and then there was one.

1 little butterfly left all alone
he flew away and then there was none.
Butterfly, butterfly happy all day, butterfly, butterfly fly, fly away.

I didn't know that this is a Barney song. I like it anyway. 

For our craft we made caterpillar pencils.  

You will need:

Foam strips
Hole punches
Small foam bits---circles, squares, triangles--for spots
Pompoms for the heads
Small wiggly eyes
Pipe cleaners 3 or 4 inches long for antennae
Pencils

White glue turned out to be too weak and runny for attaching the heads, so we switched to Tacky glue.


Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Celebrating Dr. Seuss

Here we are in March, and I am still stuck in February. But it's not my fault! February is too short!

Last week's preschool storytime fell on February 29th--- a day for celebrating Leap Year Day (impossible to explain to preschoolers) and Dr. Seuss's upcoming birthday (an occasion of fun for everyone.) For me it was a chance to try out some new activities.

As much as I love the good doctor, many of his books are too long to read to younger preschoolers. So I selected one of his shorter pieces. I've always been very fond of Too Many Daves and What Was I Scared Of? in The Sneetches, but this time I went for Gertrude McFuzz, in Yertle the Turtle.  Gertrude is Dr. Seuss's very own Fancy Nancy wannabe. She just wants to have more than one short little tail feather. She wants a beautiful tail like Miss Lolla Lee Lou. So she finds a way to get what she wants, but of course she gets greedy, goes overboard, and ends up with a tail she can't lift off the ground.

Our other story was Green Eggs and Ham, nice because most of the kids already know and love this one. I used it because of the great flannelboard idea I got from Mel's Desk. Melissa Depper is a librarian after my own heart, and she has great ideas for flannelboard activities. I copied her idea and cut out enough colored eggs so that each child could have one. After I handed out the eggs, we chanted:

Sam-I-am, Sam-I-am,
I do so like RED eggs and ham!

When their color was announced, they got to bring up the egg and put it on the board. I love this because the kids always want to help with the flannelboard figures, and most of the time I don't let them, because there are not enough to go around. This time they all got to participate, and they loved it.

We had two crafts. I started with a "green eggs and ham" craft, and then decided to add a Gertrude McFuzz picture too. The eggs were simply uncolored eggs photocopied onto white cardstock and cut out. The kids colored them any color they liked and glued them on a colored paper plate.

Here's Gertrude:

I traced her from the book and photocopied her, leaving plenty of room to add some tail feathers.

First the kids colored Gertrude, then they glued on as many tail feathers as they liked.



 Doesn't Gertrude look happy and proud with her multi-colored feathers flying behind her?

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

It's a colorful world!

There's so much you can do with colors! It's easy to do a storytime about color---so many books, so much to talk about. 

We started out talking about what colors the children were wearing---red, blue, green, brown, gray, yellow, and of course, the ever-popular pink. Then instead of singing "If You're Happy and You Know It" we sang:

If you're wearing red today, clap your hands!
If you're wearing red today, clap your hands!
If you're wearing red today, clap your hands and shout hurray!
If you're wearing red today, clap your hands!

---and on through blue and all the rest.

Our books were Dog's Colorful Day, by Emma Dodd, Lemons Are Not Red, by Laura Vaccaro Seeger, and an old-time favorite of mine, The Adventures of Three Colors, by Annette Tison and Talus Taylor.

The Adventures of Three Colors was first published in 1971 and reissued in 1980. I wish someone would reprint it---it's a delightful introduction to color theory. In the story Herbie and his dog Angelo see a rainbow and are inspired to go home and do some painting. But Herbie finds that he only has three colors in his paintbox: pink, blue, and yellow. What can he do with only three colors?

It turns out that he can do everything. The clever element in the book is the use of clear plastic pages. For instance, on one there is a blue elephant and on the facing regular page there is a yellow dog. When the plastic page is laid over the regular page a green fish appears where the elephant and the dog intersect. Several of these kind of pages follow, culminating in an undersea picture with an octopus, crab, and seahorse. Amazing!

This book isn't seen in libraries much anymore. I used my own copy of the book, one that my children enjoyed for many years.

Here's a color chant or game that the kids enjoyed doing---

If you see red, put your hand on your head,
If you see blue, touch your shoe,
If you see green, wash your face clean,
If you see yellow, wave at the fellow,
If orange is found, put your hand on the ground,
If you see pink, then think, think think!

We added more lines to the ones I already knew. I asked the kids to suggest colors, and we made up the following:

If purple you see, put your hand on your knee,
If you see white, hold your hands up to the light,
If you see black, put your hands on your back,
If you see brown, put your hand on the ground.

What could you do with turquoise, azure, or chartreuse?

We did an extremely simple craft, one that I felt a little guilty about. We strung colorful Fruit Loops on pipe cleaners to make edible bracelets. Easy and fun, but all that sugar! Sugar is the first ingredient listed on the box, so you know that Fruit Loops are really just candy, even if they are sprayed with "15 vitamins and minerals." I hope none of the mothers minded my giving their children a sugary snack.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, Where Are You?

Today at storytime it was all about polar bears and other Arctic animals. Even though it is unseasonably warm and sunny outside, in the library (and at Head Start) we visited the Land of Snow and Ice.

We read ---

Say Hello to Snowy Animals , by Ian Whybrow
(Grr-grr, hoot-hoot,swish-swash,and so on), 


Little Mo by Martin Waddell  
(lots of slipping, sliding, and gliding on the ice)


and  

The Polar Bear and the Snow Cloud,
by Jane Cabrera




Here is a song we sang. Sing it to the tune of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. The kids can join in on the "warm, warm" chorus.)


The polar bear lives in the Arctic,
He never gets cold in a storm.
He swims in the cold icy water,
His heavy coat keeps him so warm.

Warm, warm, warm, warm,
His heavy coat keeps him so warm, so warm.
Warm, warm, warm, warm,
His heavy coat keeps him so warm!

(If you type "warm" that many times, it starts to look really weird.)

For our craft we made Polar Bear pictures. 

Materials:

Construction paper
White bear cutouts
wax paper
cotton balls
glue sticks

The fun part about making this picture is crumpling and tearing the wax paper to make ice. Tear off a piece of wax paper, then let your child crumple it up and smooth it out. They can tear it any way they like to make ice mountains, or ice floes, or ice islands.

Glue the wax paper on the construction paper, then add the bears. Draw features on the bears. Pull apart one or two cotton balls and glue the pieces on to make clouds and snow.