Today we were lucky enough to have a visit from Hoglets and the British Wildlife Rescue Centre. They came in to teach us about hedgehogs and what we can do to best help these creatures. We met Harry the hedgehog and learnt that he has 5000 spikes, likes to live in hedges, eats lots of worms and bugs, rolls up into a ball when he is scared and has a small nose and eyes. 50 years ago, there were 30 million hedgehogs and now there are only 1 million. This is linked to their habitats being destroyed by new houses being built and no safe space for hedgehogs to go and move to. We participated in lots of activities throughout the morning to help us understand how we can help this animal survive in the future.
First, we were hedgehogs hunting for worms. When a badger or fox came and had a sniff around, we rolled into a ball. We collected 20 worms to help the big hedgehog and 19 for the small one. We found it easy because we used our eyes, however, we know this is different for hedgehogs because they use their nose as their eyes are so small. They are also nocturnal animals so it is harder to see when they hunt for their food at night.
The next activity involved us finding slugs. If we found one we would lose a point and go to the wildlife hospital, if we didn’t, we would get an insect to eat. We found out that hedgehogs like cat food and get poorly from slug pellets.
In EYFS we used clay to make our own hedgehogs. We used sticks to create the spikes, eyes and noses of our hedgehogs. This was based on a book we were read about hibernation and hedgehogs being nocturnal animals.
In KS1 and KS2 we were builders in our final activity where we used our STEAM skills. We had to create a hedgehog friendly housing estate. We had to think about: crossing roads, access to food, moving around between houses and gardens etc. Our housing estates were very creative and even included a hedgehog play area, speed camera and traffic lights!
