Wednesday, January 6, 2010

January Story Time

Who knew when I planned my story times for January that it would indeed be FREEZING here in "hot"lanta. I know most of the country is in an arctic freeze right now, but us southerners (even those of us who grew up in the North) just aren't prepared for this kind of weather!

Many of my teachers do an author study of Jan Brett in January (which means that our Jan Brett books are flying off the shelves) so I decided to help them kick off their unit by reading her book, The Three Snow Bears.

After we read the book, I show them a video of Jan teaching how to draw a baby bear that I downloaded off her FABULOUS website (go to the video tab and she has a TON of videos you can download).

Then to have them understand a little bit more about REAL polar bears, I show them this video from the National Geographic site. This site has some great, short videos about all kinds of animals, my only complaint, the ads before each video, but I guess they have to pay the bills somehow, just wish there was a way I could turn them off.

This story time will lead me into my next story time where I will make SNOW with the kids - although we actually might get some of the real stuff tomorrow - for once, I am hoping for NO snow day, we already have to make up 2 days for our flood days in September!

Happy New Year!!

3 comments:

Becky Maher said...

What a fun storytime! We used Jan Brett's Wild Christmas Reindeer before Christmas. I think that The Three Snow Bears might be put on the schedule for next week. Thanks for sharing your great ideas! (It's freezing in Dallas, too!)

Elisabeth Marie said...

I agree. We in South Florida are NOT supposed to have to worry about freezing rain or snow. Best of luck to you during this weather!

Camille said...

Oh my gosh, what a brilliant lesson. I loved using Brett's videos. he kids were always fascinated, no matter what grade level.