The Hat by Jan Brett

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I want to start by saying that I don't always have detailed activities for my kids everyday. There are also a lot of times that they don't go as planned. I've seen multiple people post how they just aren't a, "pinterest mom." I totally get it. I used to teach early childhood, so looking up activities for specific skills or books is really fun for me. I absolutely love doing it. I am hoping that this helps those moms who don't enjoy it as much as I do. I want to make it easy for you! I also want to make it clear that sometimes I spend precious kid-free time organizing activities that are then interrupted by toddler meltdowns and missed nap times. But I always keep trying! The structured time is good for all of us. You know that awkward time after the afternoon nap but before dinner time/whenever dad gets home? It's the worst. Adding some special activities out of things you may already have can make it more manageable!

My mother-in-law dropped off this board book for us and I knew I wanted to find some fun activities to go with it!

Supplies Needed:

While Emma took a nap, Henry and I read the book together. He enjoyed reaching for the character toys in the sock! If you don't have the toys, you can always use the character cards made by Vickie from Primary Press.

Emma and I read through the story once first. She colored her character page and then I cut them out for her!

We went back through the story and she found each character as they came up and put them in order on her sheet. Home girl would do anything to use glue! If you have an older child, they may be able to complete the sequencing activity without looking back at the story! We used it as a guide.

I had planned to spread these activities throughout the week but she insisted that we keep going! She lined up the character cards and then took each toy out of the sock and matched it to the right card. 

The next day I pulled the book out and we chatted about the main character, Hedgie. We checked out a book from the library with real hedgehog pictures. She was so curious about them that we googled some more pictures on our tablet before making our own hedgehog out of play dough and dry spaghetti noodles. 

My husband came home with this for Emma as a Christmas present which is the only reason we have brown play dough! He's such a good daddy! Cue the heart eyes.

We started to talk about the clothes in the story and what we wear during winter. I randomly pulled this cute re-stickable weather girl set out and we dressed her for the snow! 

We had a lot of fun with this book! Please let me know in the comments if you have any specific books, an age group, or skills you'd like to see more activities for. Thanks for stopping by!

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