A brilliant children’s book is Jan Brett’s ’The Three Snow Bears’: one of her most beautiful picture books, a wintry spinoff of Goldilocks, set in the Arctic. A polar bear family leaves its igloo for a walk to let baby bear’s soup cool just as Aloo-ki, an Eskimo girl, runs past, searching for her team of huskies, which have drifted away on an ice floe. Being a curious girl, she goes inside the polar bear family igloo to eat some soup, wear their boots and take a nap into the ‘littlest’ bed!
Not only the story is gripping, but also the wonderful, intricate illustrations, so typical in all of Jan Brett’s books: the distinctive borders and graphic side panels are hallmarks of her illustrations, and they help beginning readers by foreshadowing events.
Make sure then that kids look at the borders of her drawings: sharpen, thus their observation skills and encourage them to retell the story that takes place in the main frame, but also in the borders!
This is the way I used it with my kindergarten students:
You can see a video of how I used all this material (not at the Kindergarten, though, for reasons of children’s safety)
For the story patterns I used pics from the book. Here are the pdfs:
Here’s a worksheet (with a matching activity) I created and used:
The Three Snow Bears worksheet
For the little figures around and in the igloo I used the material for the bears I found in Jan Brett’s site and I drew Aloo-ki myself (not as well as Jan, I must admit!)
Aloo-ki and the polar bear family
For the igloo I used white self-hardening clay which I rolled into a flat sheet with a rolling pin and put it on top of a bowl covered in cling film. When the clay hardened I carefully removed the bowl and painted the igloo. Follow the steps here to make your own set:
You can also use a white plastic bowl or a plastic cup and a white plastic plate to make your Arctic scene (use blue permanent marker – and a steady hand!!!- to draw the ice blocks of the igloo).
As a follow-up activity I made some igloos for the students, a little eskimo and a little penguin (the kids had to colour the eskimo clothes in specific colours; blue for the pullover, red for the pants and also the penguin’s flippers and beak). Before attaching them with Blu Tack we practiced placing them in or on the igloo.
Enjoy this brilliant book!!!
