Families: Arctic Animals

For more information on how I plan and prepare my family storytimes, check out this introduction post. I starred the materials used in the plan. Some activities go unstarred because I only do this program once a week.

The Plan

Books

Baby Penguins Everywhere by Melissa Guion
Polar Bear Night by Lauren Thompson*
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr.*
Where Is Home, Little Pip? by Karma Wilson*

Theme Extension Activities

Featured CD: Stinky Cake*

Featured Track: #18 The Penguin Song*

Flannelboard: “Five Bears”*

Flannelboard: “The Penguin Went Over the Iceberg”

Puppets: There’s Something In the Snow
There’s something in the snow, now what can it be?
There’s something in the snow that I can’t really see.
Hear its funny sound…HOWL HOWL HOWL
A wolf is what I found! HOWL HOWL HOWL
(CAW CAW CAW, A cardinal is what I found! / GRR GRR GRR, A bear is what I found! / WADDLE WADDLE WADDLE, A penguin is what I found!)
Credit: Modified from “There’s Something In My Garden” originally found at SurLaLune Storytime

Repeating Extension Activities

I had lots of back-up activities in case I needed them for time. I starred which ones I used in this storytime:

• ABCs
• Dance Your Fingers Up
• Everyone Can March*
• Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes
• If You’re Happy and You Know It
• Open, Shut Them*
• Pat-a-Cake
• Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
• Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

How It Went

Every storytime that includes a guessing game with animals makes my storytime kids lose their minds, so the clear winner was “There’s Something In the Snow” this week. I enjoyed reading all the books this week, but probably pushed it by including Where Is Home, Little Pip? after we had already done two books. Because this is a drop-in program, I have to cater to the larger group which was preschoolers this week, but the few toddlers in the room were definitely out of attention. I found myself skipping page spreads in Little Pip so that the preschoolers could hear the end since they were still super invested.