In Wisconsin, we typically see a lot of snowfall in the winter months, so I wanted to do a snow themed storytime. I chose some of my favorite picture books about snow to read and tried out a new type of craft with paint which was a huge success. I love snow!
Books We Read
Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buchner
A Polar Bear in the Snow by Mac Barnett
Whose Footprints are These? by Gerda Muller
Baby Animals In the Snow
Songs We Sang
5 Little Snowmen
Five little snowmen standing in a row (hold up 5 fingers)
Each with a hat (pat head) and a big red bow (pull at neck like a bow tie)
Along came the sun ”(arms form big circle over head)” and it shone all day (lean to the left)
And one of those snowmen melted away! (put down one finger)
Continue until there are no snowmen left.
Credit: King County Library System
Let it Snow
Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful.
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
We sang this song with scarves and threw the scarves up into the air and pretended it was snow.
Winter Hokey Pokey
We put our right glove in,
We take our right glove out,
We put our right glove in,
And we shake it all about.
We do the winter pokey and we turn around.
That’s what it’s all about.
Repeat with: left glove, right boot, left boot, hat, etc.
Credit: Storytime Katie
Early Literacy Tip
Songs like the Hokey Pokey are great for identifying body parts and are repetitive which is great for early learning.
Flannel Activity
I made eight mittens in different colors and hid a snowball underneath one of them. They named colors to check under until they found it.
This game is always super popular with the kids, though if I try to do a rhyme it doesn’t work out. So, we end up just practicing our colors and then they take turns hiding the snowball after storytime.
Craft
I cut out a bunch of snowman templates and used painters tape to tape them to another sheet of paper. Kids got to choose paint colors to paint over it all however they wanted. I put out markers and also used the cricut to cut out a variety of accessories in different colors such as hats, scarves, noses, and arms! I didn’t get a photo of those because they all got used up and I didn’t want to make more.
This was a super popular craft and even some adults took part and loved it.