Fun with Polar Bear, Polar Bear

Today for our story time we did Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin, Jr.  With our first group, I read the story as I normally do with the flannelboard and asked the kids what they thought each of the animals sounded like.  I don't know if you ever have tried this, but I got a lot of blank faces for most of the animals.  That's when I had an "Aha!" moment.  I had my iPad at work today for a meeting and pulled out my Musical Flashcards app that was originally suggested in a Flannel Friday post.  Many of the animals from Polar Bear, Polar Bear (minus the flamingo and walrus) and in the app.  First, I asked the kids what noises they think the animals might make.  Then, we listened to the noise on the iPad.  They had so much fun that they wanted to know what noise other animals made and we kept going.

This worked best with a small group.  With our 15 below temperature outside, we only had 13 kids in our second group and I think that is part of why this worked so well.