Brrrrrr! Chilling with Polar Bears

The last time I wrote about polar bears I found very few children's books to include in my post.  This time I found a LOT, and plenty of songs and rhymes too. 

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I absolutely fell in love with Sea Bear!  This beautiful new book couples stunning illustrations with some of the most poetic language you'll find - and it's simple enough for young children to understand and connect with.  It starts, 

"Polar bears are patient beasts, as patient as glaciers.  We know how to hope and how to wait.  I learned to be patient long ago from my polar bear mother - "

The story follows a polar bear as it paddles across open ocean, searching for ice or land to stand on.  As the journey goes on, you and your little ones will find yourself aching for land along with the polar bear.  Without ever mentioning conservation, this book absolutely lends itself to further conversation about it.  The text and illustrations show many other Arctic animals along the way, from orca and seals, to narwhal, walrus and sharks.  I cannot recommend it highly enough!

This book also provides a perfect lead in for talking about how polar bears are insulated against the cold by their blubber and fur.  Making a blubber glove to insulate little hands from ice water isn't difficult - and there are instructions for it in this previous post.

If you're reading to young children, you'll also love Polar Bears!  Like the other books in this series, it couples beautiful photographs with simple but meaningful text.  Each 2 page spread includes just 1 - 2 sentences about polar bears, which are closely tied to the photographs.  The close text and picture connection is perfect to support emergent readers as they retell or read the pages.  My teacher heart also appreciates the table of contents at the beginning, the labeled picture of a polar bear, and the vocabulary page in the back of the book.  I would absolutely use this book with preschool, kindergarten and first grade.

If you want a take home reader about polar bears, check out this craft and booklet I created.  Like Polar Bears (above), each page includes 1-2 simple sentences about polar bears, but with black and white line drawings it's suitable to make a copy for each child to have their own.  (The finished crafts also make a very impressive bulletin board!)

Polar Bear Night and the companion book  Polar Bear Morning are also lovely for young children!  Once again the text is simple and short, and the linocut pictures are easy to see from a short distance - important if you're using it for a story time with a big group.  These books also include other Arctic animals, which I think is important for helping children build their schema of the Arctic.  


I've written before about including tangram puzzles in my teaching, and of course I have a puzzle for polar bears!  This little sweetheart is part of my Polar Tangram set, which makes it easy to incorporate some math learning along with our polar fun.

All my tangram puzzles include the shape outline form so my youngest children can manipulate the shapes to match the picture, and a colorful picture version that offers far fewer clues.  I've used these with children aged 3 - 8 and their parents, and it's amazing how engaging and challenging they can be for all ages.

My kiddos also enjoyed Please Bring Balloons.  This lovely fantasy story isn't about polar bears per se, but features a beautiful carousel bear that comes to life and transports Emma to a carousel bear rumpus!  I think the only other children's book with a "rumpus" is Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, and I can see turning on kid friendly music and having a rumpus of our own after reading this book.  This book also makes me want to get out polar bear shapes and a variety of craft materials for children to make their own carousel bears.

If you're like me, just reading about something isn't enough - you want to sing and dance and create and extend the learning, right?  I went looking and found some adorable songs and rhymes to share with you, and I have one of my own to share too. 

I wrote this little song a few years ago because so many children (and adults) don't realize that polar bears and penguins don't live in the same place.  Penguins live south of the equator, mostly in the Antarctic, and polar bears are north of the equator, in the Arctic.  Click on the picture to download a printable song page, or click here to hear me sing it on YouTube.com.

 I also found these on YouTube.com :

Here's Grizzly bears are big and brown (with verses about grizzlies, polar bears and teddy bears) from JBrary,
and
Rachel Rambach has an original song and motion rhyme Polar Bear.


For a polar bear variation on Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, check out the Johnson County Library blog, and check out Storytime Hooligans for a beautiful felt and rhyme.

I want to end today's post with a few more book recommendations.  I've focused on books I use for story times with young children, but there are many more lovely books out there!

 

 

Until next time,

Paula

The Shepherd Who Cried Wolf

Do you remember reading Aesop's fables as a child?  I do!  There are some that almost everyone is familiar with, like The Tortoise and the Hare, and The Shepherd who cried Wolf.

 Maybe it's because I remember reading the stories and thinking about the morals, that I was really pleased when I recently found beautiful clip art for fables.  Whatever the reason, I bought it, and have started retelling the stories with it.

I made a reproducible student booklet, and props for retelling the story.  (Fables and retelling stories are included in the Common Core State Standards for 2nd grade, so that's the reading level I aimed for - although younger children can certainly listen and retell the story, even if they can't read this version.)

I even made a short video of me using the props to retell the story!  I'd love for you to use this with your students - my kiddos loved watching short youtube videos like this, and I appreciated the opportunity to let another (virtual) teacher into my classroom to help me out for a few minutes.

If you're a regular reader, you know I think it's important to make learning fun, so I've also been making games to go along with the books and story retelling props.  The game I made for this one requires a spinner, so I thought I'd show you two super easy ways to make a spinner in under a minute!  The first one is pretty self explanatory,

- all you do is put a paperclip in the middle of your spinner background, and use a pencil to anchor it.  A flick with your finger sends the paperclip arrow around.  Talk about instant and easy!

Here's a more traditional way:  Use a pushpin to make a tiny hole where you want your spinner to pivot (can you see it right in the center of the circle?), then put a brad through a paperclip.  Put the brad through the hole - having that tiny hole will let you get the brad through your paper without wrinkling it up or pushing too hard and accidentally stabbing yourself in the finger with a brad.  (Yup, I've done that a time or two!)

Open the brad on the back of the paper, and you'll have a spinner like this one:

Super simple, and super fun!  How do you use fables with your students?  Do you use learning games too?  Let me know in the comments!

Have a great day!

Paula

The Tortoise and the Hare

I think we all know where our strengths lie, and if we're honest with ourselves, we see our weaknesses areas of opportunity too.  I've known for a while that I want to work on making some videos to share, but I've let it sit on the back burner, because... well... because.

Yesterday I decided to step out of my comfort zone, and made a short video retelling of the story The Tortoise and the Hare.  Is it perfect?  Goodness no!  Still, I'm pleased with it as a starting point, and thought I'd share it with you today.  :-)




I got the idea to do this as I was working on creating the retelling props and script... which grew into a reproducible reader and reading game too... sometimes these things take on a life of their own!

I found these gorgeous graphics:

but of course I couldn't control myself choose only one, and instead bought the whole set of clip art for 10 fables!

Can you guess what I'll be working on this week?  Stay tuned - I'm going to work on making more videos too!