Nature In Your Nurture

Books

🌿 Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle by Laura Purdie Salas
This illustrated nonfiction book details three strategies that animals use for winter survival– storing food or locating it in the snow, hibernation/winter dormancy through the season, or migrating to a warmer area. It has the rhythm, rhyme, and veracity that I’ve come to expect from her books.

🌿 Tracks in the Wild by Betsy Bowen
This block-print illustrated book blends facts about north woods animals with personal anecdotes and relevant quotes. Each page of text is further detailed with an illustration of that animal’s tracks.

🌿 Over & Under the Snow by Kate Messner
A child snow-shoes through the woods with their father, observing animals that are awake in the winter time and describing animals that are asleep under the snow.

🌿 Winter Sleep by Sean Taylor & Alex Morrs
In this illustrated story, a child enjoys visiting their grandmother and spending time in a special glade watching the animals. When they return to the site in the winter, it’s unrecognizable and all of the animals seem to be missing. Their grandmother explains that most of the animals are still there– asleep under the snow, the ground, and the pond. At the end of this book there are more scientific explanations of the different types of winter dormancy that different animals go through.

🌿Under the Snow by Melissa Stewart
This book features simple text with muted earth tone illustrations. It discusses animals in northern climates that experience some form of hibernation including fish, insects, reptiles, and amphibians who are often omitted from children’s books on the subject. It also explores the different types of hibernation or winter dormancies that different animals experience.

🌿Senorita Mariposa by Ben Gundersheimer (Mister G.)
This book features simple poetic text and high-contrast illustrations depicting the iconic migrations of the monarch butterfly. Verses back and forth between English & Spanish rhymes with their translations underneath. It could be read well as poetry, but it can also be sung as it shares much with Mister G.’s song of the same name (found here).

🌿 🌻Birding for Babies: Migrating Birds by Chloe Goodhart
Where Backyard Birds is a counting book, Migrating Birds is a book of colors. When we read this book, we also wave “bye” to each of the birds that will be leaving to fly south (even though some of these birds are not found here in Minnesota).

🌻Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson
A winter storm brings a series of animals into the sheltering cave of a hibernating bear. The animals share good food and good company as the bear sleeps through the party until a stray fleck of paper and a massive sneeze manage to wake the bear. The bear has a lot of feelings upon waking and expresses that they’ve missed out on all the fun and food that the other animals were having. A mouse reassures the bear that more popcorn and tea can be produced and the bear is able to join the other animals and tells stories as they shelter through the stormy night. We spend a lot of time talking about the bear’s feelings.

🌿🌻A Year in the Forest: Bear by Katarzyna Pietka
This interactive board books walks young children through facts about bears and their lives. Compare page spreads of the forest animals in winter and summer and help the bear sleep through the winter, find food in the spring & summer, and prepare to hibernate again in the fall!
(see also, A Year in the Forest: Badger, A Year in the Forest: Beaver)

🌻Little Owl’s Snow by Divya Srinivasan
In this cute board book, Little Owl explores the turn of the seasons as leaves fall, forest animals go into hibernation, and the first snow falls with only a few animals left awake to witness it.

🌿Secrets of Winter by Carron Brown
This Shine-a-Light book describes wildlife in the winter, including animals that are active in the snow and animals that mostly sleep through the season.

🌿Animal Journeys by Carron Brown
This Shine-a-Light book shows animals all over the world migrating, including salmon, caribou, whales, butterflies, and sea turtles. It describes animals that migrate seasonally for food and climate as well as those who migrate to specific places to have their babies.

🌿Hush Hush, Forest by Mary Casanova
In this beautifully-illustrated book, geese, loons, and humming birds are flying south, leaves are falling from the trees, and the animals of the forest are preparing for the first snows of winter.

Before We Sleep by Giorgio Volpe
In this very cute illustrated book, Little Red the fox is enjoying playing hide and seek with Hazel the dormouse and lamenting the inevitable approach of winter, when Hazel will go into hibernation and Little Red will be awake and lonely.

Winter Lullaby by Diane White
A young bear wants to stay up for the winter like the other animals. His mother tells home where each animal will also soon be going to bed. Good rhythm and rhyme. I like that the little bear’s dialogue is bolded to facilitate voice differentiation in reading. No additional notes on which animals only enter short periods of sleep during the winter, so the factual content is so-so.

The Squirrels Who Squabbled by Rachel Bright
This illustrated story tells a tale of two squirrels– Bruce, with excess stores of nuts squirreled, and Cyril, who didn’t start collecting until only one pinecone was left on the trees. Both intent on securing the last of the pine nuts for winter, they start off on a race to reach the pinecone as it falls, bounces, and floats away from them. When their pursuit draws them over a waterfall, Cyril saves Bruce’s life and Bruce recognizes his own greed and realizes he’s very able to share with Cyril instead of letting him starve. In subsequent years they work together to build their stores. Like other Rachel Bright stories, this book has excellent rhythm and rhyme that can be read an exciting pace with dramatic voices.

The Winter Bird by Kate Banks
An injured nightingale is unable to migrate south for the winter and must spend the season in the snow. With lots of help from other winter-adapted animals, she is able to find food and warmth needed to survive the cold and finds an appreciation for the beauty of the snowy world seen after a blizzard.

Creative Art Opportunities

🦆Paint with goose feathers
🦆Paint on white feathers
🦆Use acorn caps to make circle prints
🦆Seed art with dry corn or lentils
🦆Fuzzy warm collage with cotton balls and/or eyelet yarn clippings
🦆Muddy brown playdough

Hands On Experiences

⛅️Squirrel, goose, turkey toys (etc.)
⛅️Make a cozy blanket fort using a table or box
⛅️Explore pinecones and acorns in a sensory bin
⛅️Explore leaves in a sensory bin
⛅️Explore native animal toys in a sensory bin of snowy white rice with wood pieces to build winter dens
🌿Gather nuts and pinecones
🌿Look for nests in bare trees
🌿Watch the sky for birds– are they staying or flying south?
🌿Find/collect bugs moving into warm houses for the winter (boxelder bugs, stink bugs, millipedes, etc.)

Songs to Learn and Sing

“Hurry Hurry“ – Margaret Potts and Marys Singer (I learned this song when I was student teaching and it took me a decade to come across any reference to it online)

Rabbit twitched his twitchety ears on a twinkling autumn day,
He could hear the North Wind whistle and he scampered off to say:
Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, we must all get fat and furry,
Not a moment to be lost, I can hear bold Jackie Frost.

Groundhog sniffed her sniffety nose on a snappy autumn day
She could smell the winter coming, and she waddled off to say:
Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, we must all get fat and furry,
Not a moment to be lost, I can smell bold Jackie Frost.

Squirrel shivered a shivery shiver on a shivery autumn day
He could feel the North Wind’s fingers, and he scurried off to say:
Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, we must all get fat and furry,
Not a moment to be lost, I can feel bold Jackie Frost.

Black Bear blinked her blinkety eyes on a blustery autumn day
She could see the snow clouds gather, and she lumbered off to say:
Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, we must all get fat and furry,
Not a moment to be lost, I can see bold Jackie Frost.

“Squirrels Are Busy” (tune: Ants Go Marching)

Squirrels are busy running ’round today, today
they are hiding all their nuts away, away
In the trees, in the ground
Hiding nuts, all around
Oh, they work so hard so later they can play

“The Bear Went Over the Mountain” (adapted for hibernation)

The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain
The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see
To see what he could see, To see what he could see
The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see

The bear went into the cave, the bear went into the cave
The bear went into the cave to take a winter nap
To take a winter nap, to take a winter nap
The bear went into the cave to take a winter nap

The bear slept all through the winter, the bear slept all through the winter
The bear slept all through the winter and came out int the springq
And came out in the spring, and came out in the spring
the bear slept all through the winter and came out in the spring

“Fly High” – Glen Campbell (Adapted here for upper Midwest perspective)

Fly high and free
Fly home, fly [north] to me
Wing through the sky
And let me hear your cry of gladness

Many miles to travel, through the day and night
Heading through the [northland], ever on your flight
Fleein’ from the [south] wind, [up] across the states
[Far from] where the sun shines, that’s where my love waits
That’s where my love waits

Fly high and free
Fly [south] away from me
Wing through the sky
and let me hear your cry of goodbye

Many miles to travel, through the day and night
Travel through the [southland], ever on your flight
Fleeing from the [north] wind, [down] across the states
Far from where your heart’s been
That’s where I shall wait

Fly high and free
Fly [south] away from me
Wing through the sky
And let me hear your cry
Flying far from me

“The Hibernation Song“ – Lellobee City Farm (excerpt)

(Hibernate, hibernate, animals let’s hibernate…)
Autumn time is here, the wintertime is drawing near
All the animals that hibernate must find a warm and special place

Hedgehogs and bumblebees, green frogs and snails
Take cover in the trees, find a bed beside the trail
Raccoons must do it, little mice too…
Chipmunks don’t be late… it’s time to hibernate
(Hibernate, Hibernate, animals lets hibernate)

“Oh Groundhog“ – Elizabeth Mitchell

Groundhog lives way down in the hole, Groundhog lives way down in the hole
He’s got to hide away from the cold. Oh, groundhog!

Groundhog sleeping all winter along, Groundhog sleeping all winter along
Sleep right through the snow and the storms. Oh, groundhog!

Dreams about the warm sunshine, Dreams about the warm sunshine
Chasing the bees and the butterflies. Oh, groundhog!

Oh, when will the winter end, Oh, when will the winter end
Look out the window, it’s snowing again. Oh, groundhog!

One fine day the groundhog knows, One fine day the groundhog knows
He wakes up cause spring is close. Oh, groundhog!

Up through the tunnel into the air, Up through the tunnel into the air
Don’t see a shadow, spring is here. Oh, groundhog!

NIYN – Hibernation & Migration on Spotify
All playlists are works in progress and are actively curated when I have a unit in play or preparation, so new songs may appear and old songs may be removed if they don’t suit my designs.