Family Storytime: Animals at Night

We started off storytime by doing our bean bag dance and then we talked a little bit about night animals and nocturnal animals.

The first book I read was Secret Pizza Party by Daniel Salmieri. This book was fun and really kept their attention.

Next, we did a flannel board activity using animals and making their sounds. The group was a little shy, but the older boys in the group helped us out.

I read The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle and they really enjoyed seeing the surprise ending with the book lighting up.

For our next activity, I used the book Moonlight Animals by Elizabeth Golding. This book used a really fun effect of using a flashlight piece and lighting up the animals in the pictures. We talked about each animal and the kids thought it was really fun how the book worked.

Our last story was titled Night Animals by Gianna Marino. It was perfect for this theme and had a funny ending.

Our craft was coloring an animal forest wheel and then adding a brad and a flashlight piece on top so that the kids could rotate which animal their flashlight shined on.

I thought this was a good theme, but would have liked to see more flannel boards in our collection that could have been used for it.

Other Books:

Whooo's There? Mary Serfozo

I'm Not Scared! Jonathan Allen

Night Creepers Linda Stanek

The Night World Mordicai Gerstein

Daylight Starlight Wildlife Wendell Minor

Sweet Dreams, Wild Animals! A Story of Sleep Eileen R. Meyer

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.