What's on Your Head? - The Hat

The Hat
by Jan Brett
Laptime: preschool - early elementary
Story Circle: preschool - early elementary

Hats are so much fun. When I was homeschooling my daughter we had to do dissection for high school biology. Whenever we had a dissection lab we would put on our dissecting hats - lovely straw hats with flowers around the brim. I don't know that it made us much smarter but it certainly made cutting up dead things more fun.
The Hat by Jan Brett features a favorite character, Hedgie the hedgehog. Hedgie's curiosity over a lost sock results in the sock getting stuck on his head making a very silly looking hat. Hedgie's farmyard friends tease him but Hedgie assures each of them that the hat will come in very handy when winter comes. Soon each animal is looking for a hat of their own. Check out the border of each page to discover where the hats are coming from. Once again Jan Brett's illustrations are so detailed that each page should be lingered over.

Laptime Activities:

1. Go on a walk and wear a hat.
2. Have fun hats for different activities: a play time hat, a storytime hat, a clean up time hat, a cooking hat, etc.
3. Look around the house and find things that are not normally worn as hats and turn them into hats - i.e. a colander, a newspaper, a small trashcan, a pair of pants.

Story Circle Activities:

1. Act out the story using your classroom dress ups. One child can play Lisa who hangs up the clothes. Another child can be Hedgie who gets the sock hat stuck. Then each one of the other children can play an animal who says teasing things to Hedgie such as - what is that silly thing on your head? Hedgie can answer using the comebacks from the book or anything else that will make the other animals want a hat. After the animals have left Hedgie they may each choose something from the dress ups to wear as a hat. When all of the animals have their hats Lisa will come out and scold them for taking her clothes. If you have extra room you can end the story with a game of tag: Lisa will chase the animals and when she tags them they have to put their hat away and sit down.
2. Find objects in the room that can be used as hats. Let the children be as imaginative as they would like. Then have a fashion show.