This week we had a Snow Parade at our Movement & Music storytime!
Inspired by the book, The Snow Parade, by Barbara Brenner and illustrated by Mary Tara O’Keefe, I made some large snowflakes from white poster board. I attached four of these to large colorful flags that I had, and made large snowflake wands with six others, for a total of ten.
In the book, Andrew Barclay wants to have a snow parade, but his sister and brother both reject the idea. So Andrew goes outside and starts marching in his own private snow parade.
Along the way, he encounters various curious animals who wonder what he is doing and then opine that a parade needs more participants. So he invites them to join in the parade.
The borders of the pages gradually fill with snowflakes, as an additional snowflake appears for each new participant.
The kids were eager to join the snow parade, and parents joined in, too. With a beautiful smile, an elderly grandfather accepted the snowflake wand that was made from a cane and marched in the parade with his grandsons.
When I blew the whistle, we all sang the parade song (to the tune of “Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush”):
Come along and march with us,
March with us, march with us,
Come along and march with us,
In the Snow Parade!
Before the parade, we played rhythm instruments along with “Good King Wenceslas” and “Patapan” by Mannheim Steamroller.
After finishing with a round of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” and our goodbye song, we had to have another Snow Parade!
