Book Unit - The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear

It is a new month and I thought that we would do a month of Mousey books. Kaleb loves mice and he is thrilled about our theme. We had a ton of fun with our book this week - The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood.

Every day, we started off reading the book. We have the board book version so I believe some of the pages in the original were omitted. After reading the book, Kaleb chooses a ziplock bag from our school bin and we get to work! First activity that he chose was a game. He rolled a die and added pom poms to the board to complete the strawberries. The first one to fill up the board wins - which according to him is always him!

Then, he worked with patterns. We stuck with AB patterns for right now. I started the pattern and he finished by adding the correct pom poms. Both activities came from Making Learning Fun (link below).

He practiced his hand-eye coordination by lacing a strawberry.

I printed this mice number matching game. We used it several ways. First, I hid a paper strawberry behind a mouse and he had to find it by saying the number and flipping over the card. Then, we matched the number to the correct dots by counting. The mouse printable came from Cute in Kindy TPT store (link below).

This idea came from Boy Teacher Mama (link below) as a free printable. It is a strawberry themed number matching game to the number 6. I made it a fine motor activity by adding some strawberries from the Avalanche game that I own. He used the tweezers to add the strawberries for each number and then he fed them to his little mouse.

We are in the midst of strawberry season here in Florida. So I saved some strawberry baskets for this game that Kaleb loved.

I made some strawberry letters for Kaleb's name and added each letter to a basket. I gave him some large pom poms and he had to make a basket for each letter. After the pom pom went into the basket, he had to tell me what letter it was.

We played another strawberry game which was also found at Making Learning Fun.

He traced a mouse picture with a dry-erase marker. I slipped this into a reusable cover so he could work on it all week. This activity is from Activity Village (link below).

We read about bears and what they like to eat. Kaleb wasn't too happy about bears eating small animals such as mice. So, I had to skip that part.

Another game that I made (idea from Toddler Approved - link below) was a simple paper strawberry. Kaleb would roll a die and add pom poms for seeds using the tweezers (fine motor).

We made some strawberry balloons and played some gross motor games. He loved this activity. First, he had to keep the balloon off the floor, then hit it into the basket, and then kick it into the basket.

In the book, the mouse tries to disguise the strawberry by adding silly glasses to it. So, we thought we would try to disguise the strawberry by making our own silly glasses. The glasses template came from Picklebums (link below).

I made some strawberry play dough which smelled awesome. Kaleb and I made some strawberries to practice cutting in half to share - just like the mouse did in the book! Recipe below.

It was a fun filled week. Since we worked with this book, Kaleb has taken the book to bed with him every night! This is our first installment of the month of Mousey books (March). See you next week with Mouse Count!

Links

Worldsapart Pinterst Board

Making Learning Fun - printable for the book including the pattern strips and math game.

Cute in Kindy TPT store - Mouse match game free printable.

Boy Teacher Mama - strawberry number printable.

Activity Village - traceable mouse worksheet for fine motor practice.

Homeschool Share - has several super cute printable books and such for a lap book based not he book.

Toddler Approved - strawberry math activity with free printable strawberry pattern.

Picklebums - free printable crazy glasses template.

Once a Mom...Always a Cook - recipe for strawberry play dough.