January - The Polar Bear

Happy New Year! Here are a few notes from our week of Polar Bear fun!

We continued with our Songs, Verses & Movement for classroom routines.

Circle Time

#1 - "Good Morning, Dear Earth" verse

#2 - "Morning Verse"
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 13

#3 - "We Stretch Right Up to the Star of Our Birth" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 56

#4 - "We Stretch Like Cats, We Stretch Like Tigers" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 57

#5 - "Hippo Song" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 71

#6 - "Brrr It's Cold" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 66

#7 - "Snowy Hill" finger play
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 75

#8 - "Roll the Snow Over and Over" verse
from Winter, page 51

Monday

• The Tomten and The Tomten and the Fox by Astrid Lindgren
• Ivory Soap Snow sensory play

We had several children still traveling for Winter Break and Zac wasn't feeling well, so we kept today simple and didn't yet fully get into our polar bear activities. We read The Tomten and the Fox and looked at the Nature table, which I had set up with a scene from the story. We microwaved a bar of original Ivory soap for each child (2 minutes in the microwave.... magic) for "snow" sensory play. I also introduced my new board games, Stone Soup by Peaceable Kingdom (a fun twist on a memory game) and Kayanak by Haba (which goes with our polar bear theme). They were both a big hit!

Thank you to the family who gifted the Stone Soup game to our classroom!

Tuesday

• "Polar Bear" puppetry, finger puppet pattern (p.135) and poem (p.52) in Suzanne Down's Around the World with Finger Puppet Animals
• "The Polar Bear" from Tell Me a Story, page 96

Natalie sewed our little polar bear finger puppet several years ago when Zac was born. She was thrilled that I was using it in the classroom, and Suzanne Down's poem and puppetry suggestions were perfect with our story. She suggests using a "soft rainbow colored silk draped over your shoulder" as the aurora borealis background to the scene, so we did and it was just lovely. I like the playstand-canopy-sized Giant Rainbow Playsilk from Sarah's Silks.

Thursday

• "What Do Animals Do in Snow - Polar Bear," page 120
  from Gesture Games for Autumn and Winter by Wilma Ellersiek
• "Tempo - Music Studio - Animal Movements," page 97
  from The Children's Music Studio: A Reggio-Inspired Approach by Wendell Hanna

We had so much fun playing different instruments and moving around the room like a polar bear, listening and responding to the tempo of the music as it changed. And, of course, today was also Stone Soup Day! Here was our list of group contributions to the Stone Soup this week:

red onion
yellow onion
celery
carrots
potato
collard greens
venison bone broth

Thank you for all of the vegetables, and a special thank you to Miss Aliya for the homemade venison bone broth! The children loved its rich flavor.

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