Nature Story Time

Today's story time was on nature and I had a lot of fun picking the stories for this one! The first book that I read was Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff. In this story, Baby Bear wanders outdoors and the children and I identified the colors of what he saw. For example, he sees a yellow sun, green leaves on a tree and green grass, blue jays, a brown trout, red strawberries, orange butterflies, and a beautiful rainbow at the end. The children did a great job guessing the colors, but some of the children said that the trout was orange, not brown. The trout has a very light brown color, so I could see the reason for confusion. The children and I had a wonderful time identifying the colors of the rainbow at the end of the story.
The next story that I read was Watersong by Tim McCanna. This is a story about a fox trying to find shelter during a storm. This story is told entirely in onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia is the formation of a word from a sound associated with what it is named. For example, meow, cuckoo, or buzz. The children enjoyed identifying what was going on in the story and they also enjoyed reading along with me and saying drip, drop; spitter, spatter; gush, rush; lash, whirl; and bash, swirl, just to name a few of the fun and delightful words in this story.
The third and last story that I read was Chicky Chicky Chook Chook by Cathy MacLennan. This is a delightful story told in rhyme about chicks, bumblebees, and kittens enjoying a beautiful sunny morning and just settling in for a nap - when bam! bang! a storm arrives. They are left wet and soggy. How will they get dry? The children enjoyed answering questions about the story and what was happening.

These are alternate books that I selected, but did not read. Boom Boom by Sarvinder Naberhaus describes how a preschool class experiences a thunderstorm, spring, fall, and winter.

Puddle by Hyewon Yum tells the story of a little boy who is upset. He can't go out to play because it is raining. His mother draws a picture of him, his dog, and her taking a walk in the rain. The picture looks like so much fun to the little boy! He suggests that he, his mother, and his dog take a walk in the rain.They go outside together and have a wonderful time!

The last book that I selected, Hi, Koo! by Jon J Muth is more of a one on one read-aloud then a story time book. The title is a play of words on the content. The book format is in haiku. The main character, a panda bear named Koo, tells us his experiences of the different seasons.