Hop Old Squirrel Crankie

I am so excited to finally share what I have been working on all week! I loved illustrating this project and my kids and I have already had a lot of fun with it. Make sure you’ve downloaded the free song card for Hop Old Squirrel and get your free crankie download at the end of this post!

A crankie is a traditional storytelling tool, and it is always so fun to see the many creative ways people decorate and illustrate their crankies to share their histories, ideas, and creativity. They are kind of like manually turned old television sets! I learned about crankies from Sue Truman of the Cranky Factory. I have followed her on Instagram for a few years now and I love seeing her many different crankies and seeing how she combines music and crankies to share stories and even lately some election information through her creative medium. I am so inspired by her work! I thought a crankie would be the perfect way to share the story of our little squirrel friend this week. I got the idea to have the story all be connected by a ribbon flowing throughout the entire paper strip and I’m pretty happy with the result! It’s fun to see the ribbon move up and down and all around as the crankie goes.

I’ve made a crankie in the past, if you remember our Farmer in the Dell crankie! That one was so itty bitty, we made it out of a miniature matchbox, which was a fun size for me to explore and make my very first one, and I’ve made a few others that size since that first one. But today’s crankie was extra fun for me because I got to try making a much larger size! I used a cereal box for today’s crankie, and all the instructions to make your own are located at the end of this post. Older kids could even help make the box, and kids of all ages will love helping you decorate it. After exploring with this crankie, I’m sure imaginations will get going and ideas for new crankies will emerge. My 5 year old was helping me with this one and came up with ideas for a few different train crankies and a Winnie the Pooh Crankie (his two biggest obsessions at the moment!)

You will notice only the first verse is represented in the crankie strip. It took me 3 days just to illustrate the first verse, and I’m honestly not sure more would have fit on the dowels! I think the story the illustrations show kind of tell their own story though, and the two work together really well to create an engaging way for the kids to experience this folk song. We also had our little folkmanis squirrel finger puppet hopping alongside the crankie as we sang the song! This activity was such a great way to summon some autumnal magic, and we have been singing the Hop Old Squirrel song all week as we worked on this crankie.

As mentioned at the top of the post, the instructions to make your own crankie are provided in the downlaod below. I’d estimate about 2 hours of work, but it may be faster if you don’t cut out as many of the leaves decorations as I did. That seemed to be what used up the most time as I was working. I also think it would be fun to decorate with natural elements you find outside, perhaps some twigs and crunchy leaves, or maybe even some acorn caps? I happen to know our little squirrel friend loves acorns…