Story time - If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff

This was a really fun book to use for story time in our Twos program, and it's a great book about sequences and cause-and-effect.  I used the same songs the week before during music time to give the children more time with them. 

In this Monday, Wednesday, Friday class, I read the book the first two days and extended the story using a felt board for Friday.  I made paper versions of the images from the story and laminated them.  As I told the story (not using the book), I put one thing up on the felt board at a time.  By the end of the story, the board was FULL and the children were laughing about how many things this little mouse needed.

While working on this story time, I also made re-telling cards for when I use this plan in our back classrooms (with 3-5-year-olds).  The cards will allow the children to easily manipulate the different items in the story, attempt to put them in order, or change the story for themselves.





Songs:
Gathering - Down on Grandpa's farm
Down around the corner at the bakery shop
The old grey cat

Down on Grandpa's farm:


Down on Grandpa's farm there is a big brown cow.
Down on Grandpa's farm there is a big brown cow.
The cow, she makes a sound like this: "Mooooooo."
The cow, she makes a sound like this: "Mooooooo."

We're on our way.
We're on our way.
On our way to Grandpa's farm.
We're on our way.
We're on our way.
On our way to Grandpa's farm.

**Repeat with other animals and sounds.  For this story, I make sure to include a little gray mouse.**



Down around the corner at the bakery shop:
Down around the corner at the bakery shop
There were 5 cookies with chocolate chips on top
Along came   (child's name)   with a penny to pay
And he/she took one cookie and went away.

**Repeat, counting down until all cookies are gone.**
With the Twos, I used printed pictures of the children, in the back classroom I ask children to come up and actually buy the cupcake with their "penny."

The old grey cat:
The old grey cat is sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.  The old grey cat is sleeping by the house.The little mouse is hiding, hiding, hiding.  The little mouse is hiding in the house. (Hide mouse inside one of the houses)The old grey cat is waking, waking, waking.  The old grey cat is waking by the house.
The old grey cat is looking, looking, looking.  The old grey cat is looking for the mouse. (Ask children which house they think the mouse is in)
Little mouse, little mouse, are you in the _____ house? (Open door.  If mouse is in there, go to next part; if not, repeat "the old grey cat is looking" until the mouse is found.)
The little mouse is running, running, running.  The little mouse is running away from the cat.  (Repeat game as time allows.)

 *I drew the mouse from the book to use in this game, creating a nice tie from this last song/game right into the story.*