Hibernation Craft Activity for The Snowy Nap

Inside: A hibernation craft and writing activity to go with the book The Snowy Nap by Jan Brett. Use the free printable template to make it super easy!

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This hedgehog hibernation craft and writing activity goes with Jan Brett’s lovely book The Snowy Nap (ad).

The story follows Hedgie the hedgehog as he tries to stay up instead of hibernating.

Hibernation Craft

This hedgehog hibernation craft is great for those little hands to work on their fine motor skills. It would make a cute winter bulletin board or hallway display!

Materials & Preparation

You will need the following supplies:

• Printout of template (grab yours for free at the bottom of this post)
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Brown scrap paper
• Paper plate
• Dark blue paper
• Cotton balls
• Crayons
• Pencil

You may want to go ahead and cut paper plates in half ahead of time.

Instructions

I think you can probably pretty well see how to make this, but here are the step-by-step instructions.

1. Start by cutting narrow strips out of your brown scrap paper. This will be the dried grasses for the hedgehog’s nest.

2. Next, cut the paper plate in half and cut the hedgehog out of the template page. I forgot to color the hedgehog, but it is easiest if you do that at this stage too.

3. Then, trace around the hedgehog as shown. This will help you see where to glue the brown paper “grasses.”

4. Set the hedgehog aside and glue on the brown paper strips as shown here:

5. Now, glue the hedgehog into his burrow, and glue cotton ball “snow” along the top. I pulled the cotton balls apart to make smaller balls so that I didn’t need to use as many.

6. Finally, glue the flat part of the paper plate onto dark blue paper. I also glued more “snow” (cotton balls) onto the blue paper to fill up the area along the sides of the plate. I wanted the hedgehog craft to be like a burrow under a bank of snow.

Snowy Nap Writing Activity

Now you’re ready to amp up the learning! Look back at the story with your children and review all the fun winter activities that Hedgie got to see from the window. Ask the kids what their favorite one or two are.

For preschoolers, you can write their responses for them. Seeing their words in writing is a valuable early literacy experience. Older children can write their own answers. You can scaffold inexperienced writers by spelling out longer words for them to copy.

Cut out the box and glue it onto the top of the paper. Now your Snowy Nap hedgehog craft is complete!

Download the Free Printable Template

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Happy Teaching,

Heather