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Story Time & Craft: "Mouse Count"

Every week at little one's preschool  they go to the library and pick out a book.  He checks out the book, and takes it home for a week (we return it on the following Monday).    This week's book is Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh.    This is a short, simple "suspense" story that teaches counting forward, and backwards of ten mice; and the hungry snake that wanted to eat them. 

To make story time an interactive hands-on experience we made the mice, and the snake out of craft foam. I had tons of craft foam at home, with no clue on what to do with them. Thankfully I was enlightened by a fellow blogger's posts using craft foam

I cut the shapes of the mouse, and the snake. Little one helped by putting on the eyes, and he also helped by drawing the ears, and whiskers. For the tails, and the snake's stripes we used the Bendaroo's wax super string. Finally, I found a plastic jar that was perfect for the story. 

When we were finished with our mice, and snake craft we sat down to read the story. We started off with the mice facing up. Little one had them standing up and pretending they were playing with each other. I had two more standing up, and playing, too. Then when the mice got sleepy little one decided to face them down to sleep (makes sense since they were asleep).

Then came along the very hungry snake and started counting them one by one, and placing them in the jar.   Little one grabs the snake and grabs each mouse counting them until he has all ten.  The snake wraps the jar, and just before he eats them, one of the mouse tells him that there's another one. So off goes the snake to look for the other snake. Little one slithers the snake away from the jar. :) 

 
Once the snake was gone the ten mice shake back and forth the jar (little one shakes the jar back and forth), and then he starts counting backwards 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 ... 1 until they were all out of the jar!   The snake had been tricked because there was no other mouse! When he returns he finds the jar empty.  

This is such a fun story to read and play out with little one. That we've read and played it a few times before bed time. 

We've really enjoyed this book, and can't wait to see what book he will bring this week. What good children's book have you read lately to your child? Would love to know! Please comment, share and/or like! 

This post has also been linked and shared at Kid Lit Blog Hop #6.