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Snowman, Snowman -- What Do You Hear?

© Stacy Peters-Walters

Young children, ages four through seven, love books with rhyming patterns. In Eric Carle and Bill Martin Jr.’s book “Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?”, students continually hear the following pattern:

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, what do you hear? I hear a lion roaring in my ear.

Lion, Lion, what do you hear? I hear a hippopotamus snorting in my ear.

With this pattern and the pictures of animals on each page, young children find it an easy book to pick up and “read” to themselves or to each other. I like to read this book and its companion book, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” to kindergarten and first-graders. Once we’ve read the books several times, I ask them to help me make a book on the computer.

The class gathers around the computer and I bring up a presentation program such as PowerPoint, KidPix or Presentation. I then give them a topic to think about. Because it is almost winter and there will be snow soon where I teach, I usually have them think about winter and snow objects and animals. Then I tell them that I will start.

I type in the presentation software,

Snowman, Snowman, what do you hear? I hear a

I pause at this point and ask the students what the Snowman should hear. As a group, we decide the next line and I finish typing it in.

Snowman, Snowman, what do you hear? I hear a little bird chirping in my ear.

I then go to the next slide and type in the pattern again:

Little bird, Little Bird, what do you hear? I hear a

With this next pause, I begin to go around the room and have each child share a new line with me. Once all of the children have given me a line, we go through the story as a presentation on the computer with the class reading with me.

During computer lab time, I then have each student draw a scene to go with their page of the story. I also have them type their names at the bottom of their pictures to practice using the keyboard. Students then save their work, sometimes with help. I then later insert each picture into our presentation. I keep a copy of the presentation on the computer so that we can read it as a class at different times during the year and so that I can have it automatically run during parent-teacher conferences. I also like to print out a copy of the presentation and bind it. I put it in the class library so that students can read their book whenever they want.

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