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.

Preschool Picasso: A Hedgehog Valentine's Day

For February's Preschool Picasso and Toddler Art programs, I knew I wanted to have a hearts theme for Valentine's Day. I didn't want it to be the usual Valentine's Day program so I decided to vary it a little bit. That led me to a hedgehog Valentine's Day theme. 

After narrowing down to two crafts and finding a book that was just right for my theme, it was time to prep and put on the program. The prep for this wasn't that bad. I did have to trace hedgehogs and cut out a bunch of hearts, but it could have been done easier if I had a smaller heart die-cut and trimmed my construction paper so it fit into the copier to make my hedgehog templates. 

Today's Preschool Picasso made up for last night's storytime turnout. No snow today and everyone came out for a Preschool Picasso kind of day!

We talked about Valentine's Day and read the perfect book for a hedgehog and hearts kind of theme. Happy Valentine's Day, Gus! by Jacklyn Williams is an easy reader about a hedgehog named Gus who desperately wants to make his mom a Valentine's Day gift, but just can't seem to get it right. Despite this story being a little wordy (I knew I had an older group who could handle it) and it being a smaller book with little illustrations, I still think this was a very fun story that tied-in beautifully with the crafts, especially when you read the ending!

Once we were done reading about Gus, it was time to make our own Gus...a Valentine's Day hedgehog made out of painted hearts. Each child had some cutout hearts that could be painted red or pink and could be glued to their hedgehog to make "spikes." Once the hearts dry, they do spike out for a nice effect. The kids liked painting their hearts, we used thinner paint brushes, and completed their hedgehog with a red pom pom nose and a pink craft eye. These turned out so unique and cute!

Our other craft was making a Valentine just like Gus did for his mom. I cut card stock in half and used a heart die-cut to make a heart shape in the middle of the paper. Different colored ribbon was glued onto the solid card stock and then the heart shaped cut-out was glued on top to make a ribbon heart. 

Both crafts were a hit and the kids enjoyed picking out different colored ribbon to make their own special hearts. 

Other books that could have complimented this theme were Hedgehog: A Sharp Lesson in Love by Benn Sutton, Panda's Valentine's Day by Tara Morrow, and My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall. Panda's Valentine's Day mentions using ribbon for a Valentine's Day craft and My Heart is Like a Zoo uses heart shapes as illustrations for the animals in the story. 

 

Toddler Art: Celebrating Fall...with a hedgehog

I must admit that I have been lagging a little bit this week because I caught my first cold of the season so I was trying to keep my Family Storytime and Toddler Art programs relatively easy for me this week. Funny thing is, I find myself seeming to do an even better job when I'm feeling a little under the weather because I want to continue to do my best. Anyway, this cold disappeared fast and I was able to put on another fun Toddler Art. 

I wanted to stay with the "celebrating fall" theme that I had done in Preschool Picasso. After searching my Pinterest board for inspiration, I settled on the last craft I needed to get started with prep. 

I always like to conserve for these programs and realized that when I was using the die-cut machine to cut out leaves for the Preschool Picasso program, that I could use the beautiful leaf cutout pattern scraps for another craft. 

So it was decided. Our first craft would be painting white construction paper with fall colors and glue our leftover leaf cutout patterns on top. And thanks to Pinterest, our second craft would be to make a hedgehog using leaves.

I found a book to tie hedgehogs and leaves together in Herbie's Big Adventure by Jennie Poh. This is a story about a baby hedgehog, Herbie, who leaves his mommy for the first time to explore and hibernate. This was not only a great story to match my theme, but all the parents found it adorable and we learned about being brave and the changing seasons. The illustrations are modern and beautiful.

Despite the story being on the longer side, the kids were very attentive during this story and it allowed for a few of the families who came in late to hear a little bit of it.

After explaining each craft, it was time to get started.

The painted leaf craft gave good painting practice for the younger group and helped them practice holding the paint brush. They experimented with combining colors and seen how their leaves ended up being their painted colors on their paper. 

The hedgehog craft gave them some time to color and have some sensory learning using the leaves with their smell and texture. It was a bit hard for the little ones to wait for the glue to dry to make the leaves stick, but that was good practice being patient.

A few of the families took some hedgehog books to be checked out, which are pictured below.

 It's always a pleasure to read a picture book to a group and I still smell the leaves we used for the craft. Happy Fall!