Family Storytime: Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs is a cute storytime theme for the fall that has plenty of books to pick from that focuses both on hedgehogs and the season. It's also a great theme for teaching about nocturnal animals.

We started off storytime with our bean bag song and then talked about what we knew about hedgehogs. Of course we talked about their spiky quills and how they are awake at night.

Soon enough, we dived into our first book, HedgehogNeeds a Hug by Jen Betton. This is a cute book that focuses on hedgehog's quills and how the other animals are afraid to hug him, except for the trickster wolf who ends up getting hurt from trying.

We each had a turn to put up flannel hedgehogs on the flannel board and count how many there were using a cute rhyme and then we got to our second book, Hedgehugs: Autumn Hide-and-Squeak by Steve Wilson and Lucy Tapper. I think everyone enjoyed this book because it was cute and we all had opportunities to squeak!

We sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" together and then got to our final hedgehog book…a short one called Hedgehog'sMagic Tricks by Ruth Paul. The group loved saying "Abracadabra!" throughout the book.

For our hedgehog craft, we made hedgehogs using pine cones. Even though it took some patience to get the pine cone to stick to our hedgehog face, each hedgehog looks so cute and unique.

Books:

Herbie's Big Adventure Jennie Poh

Hedgehugs Steve Wilson & Lucy Tapper

Help! A Story of Friendship Holly Keller

One Rainy Day M. Christina Butler

Little Hedgehog's Big Day Daniel & Heidi Howarth

Hedgehog Needs a Hug Jen Betton

Harriet Dancing Ruth Symes

Other activity:

Hedgehog, Hedgehog (tune: Teddybear, Teddybear, Turn Around")

Hedgehog, hedgehog, turn around.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, touch the ground.

Hedgehog, hedgehog stretch up high.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, search the sky.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, search down low.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, touch your toes.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, sit on the ground.

Hedgehog, hedgehog, curl up small and round.