Olympic Groundhogs!

OK, so here we have the first Storytime Mashup.  On February 4, with Groundhog Day happening a few days earlier and the start of the Winter Olympics happening just a few days later, I was torn for a theme…so I mashed both of those concepts together.  The kids loved it.  I suppose the only thing I missed including  was the Superbowl - maybe I should have gone with "Olympic Groundhogs that Play Football."  Hmmm.  Maybe next year.

Here are the books we read:

Snow Happy! by Patricia Hubbell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
All of the joy of a snow day are captured in lively rhyming text and soft, brightly colored illustrations.  Waking up to snow, the kids in the story are "silly-willy laugh, feeling slightly daffy" as they leap and run through the snow.  It didn't take long for my audience to join in the repeated chorus of "snow happy!"  and engage in counting kids, spotting animals in the illustrations, and counting snow angels.  Fun read-aloud.


Olympics by B.G. Hennessy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The winter olympics are coming and so I wanted to devote a story time to the olympics and various winter sports.  This book gives a great overview of the olympic games, using simple appealing text and brightly colored detailed illustrations.  All of the preparations, training, and the games themselves are explained in a way that even the youngest members of my story time audience enjoyed.  There is a page on the history of the games as well.


Tacky and the Winter Games by Helen Lester
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Tacky the penguin has always marched to a different drummer.  In this book he encounters all of his friends training for the winter games.  Not to be left out, Tacky joins the team, even though he was not "the fittest of birds."  The reader sees that while Tacky is well meaning, he trains a little differently, and he even participates a little differently in the winter games. There is a happy ending for our hero.  Easy to read aloud text and wonderful, fun filled illustrations made this a winner with my story time audience.


Grumpy Groundhog by Maureen Wright
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It's Groundhog Day and the entire town is waiting for Mr. Groundhog to appear…but he decides he is going to spend the day in his cozy bed.  The rhyming text flows and the soft, detailed illustrations are filled with fun and humor.  My story time audience loved this one, it captured their attention even though it was the last book I read.


For the craft, we made Pop-up Groundhogs: