The Snow Queen

I had no idea when I set out to do a storytime based around The Snow Queen, just how difficult it would be to find storytime-friendly versions of the tale. Everything we had on our shelves was practically novel-length. In the end, I decided to borrow one from my mom, and bought another for my personal collection. 

Outline: 

Opening Song: Put Your Hands up High

Opening Rhyme: Hands go up

Story: The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson illustrated by Charlotte Cooke

Song: Snowflakes, Snowflakes
Tune: Twinkle Twinkle
Snowflakes, snowflakes
Dance around
Snowflakes, snowflakes
Touch the gorund
Snowflakes, snowflakes
In the air
Snowflakes, snowflakes
Everywhere.

Song: It is snowing
It is snowing, it is snowing
All around, all around
Soft and quiet snowflakes
Soft and quiet snowflakes
Not a sound, not a sound

Coding word: SNOW

We used the ASCII Binary Alphabet to spell SNOW. Blue snowflakes represented the number 1, and purple snowflakes represented 0. 

Story: The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson illustrated by Alan Marks

Activity: Roll a Snowflake Game

Craft/Activity: Painting with shimmery puffy snow paint

Final Story: A Royal Sleepover in Frozen 5 Minute Stories

Goodbye Song

How it actually went: 

My regulars were all back this week! Yay! They were not familiar with the story of the Snow Queen so this was a nice opportunity to introduce them to the story. As pared down as the books I read were, they were still pretty wordy for most storytimes. My kids did really well though. Normally I like to include fractured versions along with the traditional tale, but this is one that doesn't appear to have been played around with a lot (hence the inclusion of Frozen, since it's the closest I could get). The two versions I read had a lot of similarities, but a few differences, so we talked about that a bit as I read the second book. 

The Roll a Snowflake game was a little confusing for all of us. I think we all interpreted the rules differently, but I tried not to be too strict about it. The kids just seemed to enjoy playing with markers. 

One of the kids decided to add some extra color to her snowflake. 

Snow paint was a lot of fun. Like the person in the original blog post, I didn't really measure how much shaving cream or glue I was using. I just poured and stirred and played around with it. I tested it to see how well it painted, and it seemed to work, so that worked for me. 

Snow paint: shaving cream, white glue, and glitter.

Several of the kids opted to paint with their hands. 

I found that when I used paint brushes, the snow paint seemed to smear more than anything, so I kind of plopped it on there with a spoon. I let the kids have the option of using a paint brush, a plastic spoon, or their fingers. Things definitely got a little messy, so I might recommend a table cloth or tarp, but it was all in good fun. 

Painting with a spoon.

Finger painting.

Overall, it was another fun storytime. I enjoyed introducing the children to a fairy tale that they were not familiar with, and they had fun getting messy with the snow paint. As always I would love to hear from anyone else who had tried any aspect of this. How did it work out for you? What worked really well? What would you try differently? Feel free to comment away!

*Disclaimer* This post contains links to Amazon, but I am not an Amazon affiliate so I do not receive any compensation for any sales which may result. I am an Independent Consultant with Usborne Books & More, so I do receive a commission from sales on my Usborne site.