Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming

Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming is a wonderful bed time story, but it's also a great book to use as a jump of point for all kinds of learning. Bear smells winter in the air and knows it's time to head to his den to sleep, but before he settles down he reminds snail that it's his bed time too. Before snail heads to bed he reminds skunk that it's his bed time, and so on.  Each animal notices another sign that winter is setting in and makes sure he reminds still another animal that it's time to prepare for winter hibernation.

Denise Fleming, both the author and the illustrator of this book and many other books, has done a great job of putting together words and pictures that make this story captivating.  On Denise Fleming's website you can read about the very interesting way that she makes her illustrations using pulp painting.  She even provides instructions on how to make your own paper.  Also on her website is a page dedicated to activities specifically for Time to Sleep. Actually, you'll find pages with activities for most, if not all, of her books on her site.  Anna and I had great fun using the patterns from her site to make the characters from the book.

This book can inspire all kinds of learning.  The interesting way the illustrations are made make this a great book to use for an art lesson.  The content of the book makes it a great resource for a science lesson talking about the changing of the seasons and/or hibernating animals.  I used it as a chance to talk about both with Anna.  I also found online A Kindergarten Lesson: Animals Prepare for Winter which includes Time to Sleep as one of the books used for the lesson and suggests ways to use it for a math lesson to teach ordinal numbers.

Whether you choose to use the book simply as a bedtime story or as a jump of point to some kind of learning, Time to Sleep is sure to be a book you will enjoy.