This Christmas, my preschoolers I spent many happy moments reading and re-reading the beautiful classic children’s story “Frosty the Snow Man”, as retold by Annie North Bedford, illustrated by Terri Super and published by Little Golden Books (1989).
When little children connect with a wonderful story, they just love hearing it over and over again. Being to listen to a favourite story multiple times helps develop important pre-literacy skills such as prediction-making, recall and communication as they get to help to tell the story too.
They really enjoyed turning the pages and helping me tell the story, describing all about how the children made the snowman and then put a hat and mittens on him. They loved talking about their own hats, scarfs and mittens and what colour their own were. When children have really connected with a story, I love giving them the chance to engage with that story in multiple ways like dress up props for pretend play or art projects.
They especially love the mysterious way that Frosty the Snow Man disappears at the end of the story but his tall black hat is still blowing in the wind. They love to have a hat to hold in their own little hands and help to blow some wind into the air just like when Frosty the Snow Man disappeared.
I arranged bits of cotton wool, red and green crepe paper, tiny sticks, glue and scissors, and gave each of them the chance to make their own snowman. We then displayed their snowmen on the wall in our library area and I gave each of them the chance to show and tell their friends about their own snowman as well which literally brought our own story corner to life with so many snowmen. A memorable story-telling time all around.