Get ready - it will be winter soon! How do the animals who live in the coldest regions manage?? We learned a bit about that very thing today at storytime! Maybe we can all learn a little something about surviving winter from those amazing Arctic and Antarctic animals :) Here's what we read:

Over in the Arctic Where the Cold Winds Blow by Marianne Berkes; Ills. by Jill Dubin

If You Were a Penguin by Wendell and Florence Minor

Grumpy Pants by Claire Messer

Marianne Berkes has several "Over in the..." books with various illustrators, so if you are teaching a lesson on a certain habitat, she is a great author to check out! Sing Over in the Arctic, if you like, and take a look at other authors who goes to town with "Over in the..." books, as well as other books about animals and nature: Jennifer Ward, April Pulley Sayre, and Laura Purdie Salas, to name a few...

 

Another book by the Minors, If You Were a Penguin, (very much like If You Were a Panda Bear which we read last week. See last weeks post!) has so much information between it's covers, and all of it presented so sweetly with Wendell's illustrations. Another age-spanning volume for the whole family to enjoy :)

 

Grumpy Pants is a joy. No matter what is going on in the storytime room, by the end of this book everyone is on the same page. Got a kid with the grumpies?? Share Grumpy Pants for some excellent ideas on how to cure them. But use warm water :) What?! Read the book and find out!

 

Let's talk penguins!

 

Three Baby Penguins

 

 

 

 

3 Three baby penguins waddling in the snow

 

Where they’re going nobody knows…

One does a belly-flop and off she goes! (Bye, bye!)

That leaves two baby penguins waddling in the snow!

 

2 Two baby penguins waddling in the snow

Where they’re going nobody knows…

Another one does a belly-flop and off he goes!

Now there’s one baby penguin waddling in the snow!

 

1 One baby penguin waddling in the snow

Where it’s going nobody knows…

She does a belly-flop and off she goes! (Bye, bye!)

That leaves NO baby penguins waddling in the snow!

 

 

We also went down to the ocean to help walrus wash his winter coat. Thanks to Brytani Fraser and Emily Lloyd for this brilliant props song - we love it! We used scarves for this song today:

 

The Walrus Washes His Winter Coat

Oh, the walrus washes his winter coat
down by the wavy ocean. (make waves with hands!)
He adds some water and he adds some soap (pour first with one hand, then the other!)
and he waits…and he waits…and he waits. (Finger tap wrist…)

Then the laundry shakes, shakes, shakes (Just shake it up!)
The laundry shakes and shakes and shakes
The laundry shakes, shakes, shakes until it’s clean.
The laundry shakes, shakes, shakes
The laundry shakes and shakes and shakes
The laundry shakes, shakes, shakes
until it’s clean.

Another verse: The laundry spins, spins, spins (Spin it round!)

 

 

What a fun storytime! Just a reminder that next week will be our last Family Storytime for the session. We'll start up again in the beginning of February. (The scary part? It will be here before you know it!!) And for our last storytime on Saturday the 9th, we'll have a fun special. We'll bring out the puppet theater and puppets and have snacks and a project!

 

That's all I have time for!

See you next time!

Miss Kelly

 

P.S. Here's a booklist!

 

Booklist:

Way Up in the Arctic by Jennifer Ward; Ills. by Kenneth J. Spengler

If You Were a Penguin by Wendell and Florence Minor

Over in the Arctic Where the Cold Winds Blow by Marianne Berkes; Ills. by Jill Dubin

Grumpy Pants by Claire Messer

Little Penguin: The Emperor of Antarctica by Jonathan London; Ills. by Julie Olson

Baby Polar by Yannick Murphy; Ills. by Kristen Balouch

Polar Bear, Arctic Hare: Poems of the Frozen North by Eileen Spinelli; Ills. by Eugene Fernandes

Forever by Emma Dodd

My Little Polar Bear by Claudia Rueda

Polar Bear Night by Lauren Thompson; Ills. by Stephen Savage

I Am Pangoo the Penguin by Satomi Ichikawa

Polar Opposites by Erik Brooks

Little Peguins by Cynthia Rylant; Ills. by Christian Robinson

Penguins 1-2-3 by Kevin Schafer

Nonfiction:

The Magic School Bus Presents: Polar Animals by Cynthia O’Brien J 591.7586

Frozen Wild: How Animals Survive in the Coldest Places on Earthby Jim Arnosky J 591.74 Arnosky

Do Penguins Get Frostbite? Questions and Answers About Polar Animals by Melvin and Gilda Berger; Ills. by Higgins Bond J 591 Berger

The March of the Penguins from the film by Luc Jacquet; narration written by Jordan Roberts; photography by Jerome Maison J 598.47 March

Penguin Day: A Family Story by Nic Bishop J598.47 Bishop

Penguins and Antarctica by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce J 598.47 Osborne

Brrr! A Book about Polar Animals by Melvin and Gilda Berger J 591.7 Berger

Polar Bear Math: Learning About Fractions from Klondike and Snowby Ann Whitehead Nagda and Cindy Bickel J 513.2 Nagda

DVD

National Geographic’s Really Wild Animals: Polar Prowl YS DVD J 591