Cut out animal images from magazines. Make sure the animals are a fair mix of hibernating animals, migrating animals and animals which stay in the area during winter. Place each animal on a pegboard and create separate picture cards to represent hibernation, migration and adaptation. The hibernation card will have a picture of a cave, the migration card will have a silhouette of a flying bird and the adaptation card will have a winter scene. The teacher will help the students match the picture cards to the correct animals.
Drape a dark blanket over a table and allow the preschool students to crawl under the table while pretending to be a hibernating animal. This activity works best when a teacher and a helper monitor the activity, with one outside the tent and the other adult inside. Encourage the children to move in different ways, such as using the bear crawl, crawling on all fours like a chipmunk, hopping like a hibernating frog or flapping like a hibernating bat.
The Apples 4 The Teacher website features a Java flash matching memory game (See Resources). The animals who hibernate are presented on the cards. Preschoolers will match the cards during computer time. After all cards are matched, a picture of a hibernating animal is revealed. Use this activity to reinforce a list of hibernating animals and to increase cognitive concentration as well as hand-eye coordination.
Gather children in a circle and choose one to be the grizzly bear. This child lies in the center of the circle, curled up face down with his eyes closed. Everyone sings the following song: "Grizzly Bear, Grizzly Bear, sleeping in your den. Please be very quiet, very, very quiet. If you shake him, if you wake him, he will growl at you!" The teacher picks a student to gently shake the child in the middle. When the song is finished, the center child will try to guess who shook him. The bear gets to let out a terrific growl before joining the circle and the shaker is now the new bear.