A guide for using our resources

Children will explore the winter adaptations of different animals.

Vocabulary: hibernation, hooves, toasty

Science Focus: animal adaptations

Simple, spectacular ideas to boost your lessons.

• This fanciful rhyming tale follows several pajama-clad animals as they board a “hibernation train” and try to get cozy.
• The book is perfect for pairing with nonfiction; each of the featured animals is a real winter sleeper! You’ll even find scientific information on the last page.

• Play the game Duck, Duck, Goose—but with a hibernation twist! Have children sit in a circle. Choose one child to be the “nature explorer.” The rest of the children will be bears.
• Have the bears curl up and pretend to sleep. Then have the explorer walk around the circle, tapping each bear on the head and either saying “hibernating” or “awake.”
• When the explorer taps a bear and says “awake,” that bear jumps up, growls, and chases the nature explorer back to their spot. The child who played the woken-up bear gets to be the next nature explorer!

• Work together to find and circle each h in the issue.

Skill: art, oral language

Materials: brown paper bags, scissors, construction paper, glue, cotton balls

• To create a bear cave, lay a paper bag flat on the table so the folded bottom is facing up. Cut the bag off about an inch above the folded bottom.
• Next, unfold the bag and cut a U-shaped opening on one side. Place the bag so that one side rests flat on the table and the side with the U-shaped opening rests at an angle.
• Glue cotton ball “snow” to the outside of the cave. Cut construction paper “leaves” and put them on the inside.
• When the cave is complete, kids can use a small stuffed bear or even counting bears as props to tell hibernation stories!