Snow and Snowman Storytime, Friday, December 28 @ 10:30

Books:

• Bear Snores On board bookby Karma Wilson.  I had a mouse, rabbit, badger (PPLC loan), a crow, and of course a giant bear. So I read the book and presented the characters as I read, trying to remember to look politely at the puppet when the puppet talks. I tried to get the kids to snore the bear snore, but only Olivia snorted along with me. Next year: Use the puppet theater, small animals up top, bear below.
• If I Were a Polar Bear by Rives. I forgot to use this book here! And it would have been perfect! I always read it back to front.

I love this "How to Be a Puppeteer in 2 Minutes" because that's how long my attention span is. Stuff like: The PUPPET is supposed to make eye contact with the audience.

• Wild Tracks by Jim Arnosky, j591.479.  I don't read this book like a storybook -- it's not a storybook. I talk about what a track is, and depending on the age of the children, show them a few examples. The deer tracks were interesting for them, and then I showed them the big polar bear track, showing them the size of the polar bear track compared to their feet.
• Snow by Manya Stojic. A nice mix of forest animals talking about the coming snow. Great pictures.
• That's Not My Snowman board book by Fiona Watt.  I gathered the children in a circle so they could all touch the parts of this book.  That gave me a nice closure so they were a little settled down when I was ready to talk to them about the craft project. 
• OH! by Kevin Henkes 
• Or Snowballs by Lois Ehlert.

Flannelboard:

We sang This is Little, This is Big, and then I gave them three white circles and turned them loose on the flannelboard. They just stuck them on any which way, so I gave them a little prodding: we picked up some pretend snow, made pretend snowballs and threw them at the black board! At each pitch, I lined up a circle. After three we had made the snowman.

Craft:

Two-year-old Liam did great with this, although his gammie helped. When I do this next, I'm going to have the kids paint white circles on first, and then add the snow. It was frustrating for them to try to fill in the shapes with the globby gluey shaving cream mixture.

1.     Paint a snowman on a piece of blue paper with white paint. Make a huge circle, a big circle, and a small circle. Use round motions.

2.    In a small plastic cup, mix up some shaving cream (shake first!) and some glue. Go over the snowman with this fluffy mess.

3.    Add some black eyes, a carrot nose, and some red buttons. Maybe add some snow dots. Maybe a snow bank for him to stand on.

Have some leftover shaving cream? Fill a muffin tin with it, add six different colors, and paint the bathtub!  These were made with food coloring, but you can add poster paint if you’re worried about staining your grout. The original blogger said the food coloring always comes out “eventually”. Looks like fun, but not a library project -- I don't have a bathtub here!

Build a Snowman Game