Rock Chalk Speech Talk

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If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

“If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” is my favorite Laura Numeroff book, and I love when Laura Numeroff week rolls around in preschool! It has great illustrations to work on basic vocabulary and WH questions with my students as we read, and is engaging enough so that my kids love reading it more than once throughout the week, as they hear it both in class and in speech!

I have a lot of both general cookie-themed activities, as well as specific activities relating to the book to use during this week.  One of the activities I used incorporated both– my WH Question Cookie Flip activity that’s part of my If You Give A Mouse A Cookie packet in my TpT store!

I printed a picture of a cookie jar from My Cute Graphics and attached it to an empty tissue box.  The kids used a play kitchen spatula to scoop up the cookies and flip them over, and then I read the question on the back.  Some of the cookies were comprehension questions relating to the story, while others were just general WH questions (which I used to work on WH questions when I did this activity for small groups in the classroom).  After answering the question, they got to put the cookie in the cookie jar!

We also made cookies with “icing” (shaving cream/glue mix) and “sprinkles” (glitter).  I got the idea from one of the prek teachers who had her kids cover a snowman with glue/shaving cream the week before.  When the mixture dries, it’s puffy! So fun, and a fun little sensory activity! This was really fun to use with my artic kids as we practiced their words!

As for the quote, “Leave a little sparkle wherever you go” … I think we nailed it… annnd perhaps we left more than just a “little” sparkle–especially for the few kids who dumped a bunch of glitter on and then blew it off the cookie, sending glitter everywhere! Oh well- what is preschool for, if not for exploring the cause/effect of glitter explosions?!

Later in the week after I got them prepped, I used my new “Mouse” artic cards. I forgot to take a picture of them while they were out, but they’re super cute, and it was fun to change up the stimulus cards a bit for the week.

We used them while making the shaving cream cookies, and also while we did these Mouse magnet pages from Making Learning Fun.  I used the Bingo dauber paint markers, but you could use the pieces from Chipper Chat, too!

Another thing we did was a (freebie!) category sorting activity from LC SLP.  I used this for some of my lower kids during in-class small group rotations as a receptive language task, as well as a basic expressive vocabulary task for picture naming.  I also used it with one of my students who I am introducing EET to, so he named the picture, named the category it went to, and gave a feature/function of the item.

Oh, Cariboo.. Where would I be without you?! I use this game every. single. week.  Every week.  I don’t know why the kids don’t tire of it but they jump at the chance to play it every week! I have these Cariboo-sized pictures of items in the story in my TpT packet mentioned above.  I used these cards for comprehension questions.  After reading the book, I asked them questions about the story, like “What did Mouse use to trim his hair?” or “Where did Mouse hang his picture?” and they had to find the right picture that answered my questions.  When they found the right picture, they opened the compartment to see if there was a ball underneath!

Another activity we did was play Memory with my “Milk & Cookies Go Togethers” activity on TpT (also in my full If You Give A Mouse A Cookie packet).  We worked on associations and describing how items are alike/belong together.  I kept the cookies in the top row and the glasses of milk in the bottom row, so the kids had to flip over one from each row to see if they found two items that went together.

Sticking some themed pictures (in this case, cookies) on top of beanbags are an easy, go-to general reinforcer when the kids get extra wiggly and need some movement! We tossed them into an empty box and pretended like it was a cookie jar.

The Cookie Doodle app for the iPad is fun to use for this week, too! You can  choose from different recipes and mix all the ingredients together before rolling out the dough and decorating.  It’s great for sequencing, requesting, cooking vocabulary (rolling pin, dough, eggs, butter, pour, roll, cookie cutter, oven, etc…) turn taking (my turn/your turn when decorating a cookie), and working on 3+ word phrases (ie crack the eggs, roll the dough, I want sprinkles, etc…)  It’s one of my best 99 cent purchases 🙂
Last year, I had a kiddo on my caseload who was moving over the summer.  He’d ask me to play “the cookie making game” every single therapy session (no joke).  On the last day of school, his mom told him, “Tell Miss Kari ‘bye’ and that you’ll miss her” .. He turned around and said “Bye, Miss Kari! I’ll miss your cookie making game!” … ha ha. I miss that kid, and think of him every time I play this game!
PS- They have a cake doodle app, as well, that’s basically the same concept.. in case you wanted to use it for “If You Give A Cat A Cupcake!”
Those are some of the fun things we did for If You Give A Mouse A Cookie week.. What are some of your favorite activities to use to go along with this book??

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