Mousekin’s Golden House, by Edna Miller

A little mouse is searching for a house to sleep in through the winter. What will he find, will he be safe? This is a beautifully illustrated story.

Materials

1 origami mouse per child and several extra for the block center. Directions for origami mice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjPo3P-Wn_Y
Mouse mask

Vocabulary

Forest (woods)
Swooped (to fly quickly down)
Sulking (to pout angrily)
Hibernate (pass the winter sleeping “Certain animals hibernate because food supplies become scarce during the winter months. By going into a long deep sleep, they bypass this period completely, waking up when food becomes more plentiful”.

Before Reading the Story

Ask the children if they know what a jack-o-lantern is? Ask them if they made a jack-o-lantern last Halloween? What shape eyes, nose, and mouth did you make? Let the children share any jack-o-lantern stories that they may have.

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; develops increasing abilities to understand and use language to communicate information, experiences, ideas, feelings, opinions, needs, questions; and for other varied purposes.

Reading the Story

When you get to the page where Mousekin saw something in the path left over from Halloween, ask the children if they can guess what it might have been?

After Reading the Story

Go back through the story and talk about the pictures. Ask the children if they can tell what season different pages represent. Explain that some animals hibernate all winter. Talk about the turtle and how he goes inside his shell when he is afraid. Show the children the forest and talk about other animals who might live in the forest.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Discovery

Put a jack-o-lantern inside of the classroom where the children can observe it. You can also carve an apple into a head shape and leave out to observe. After several days the apple head will start to look like a shrunken head. As the fruits start to wrinkle, call attention and let the children begin to share daily observations. Have them draw their observations of the pumpkin weekly. Does it still look the same?

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops growing abilities to collect, describe, and record information through a variety of means, including discussion, drawings, maps, and charts.

Bring in a box of soft and hard things for the children to sort. Try to bring in some natural objects like moss, cotton fluff, sticks, and rocks as well as man made items.

Science/Scientific SKills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools t and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.

Music and Movement

Explain to the children that when a mouse or other small creature sees an owl or other enemy in the wild, they often freeze. Put on music with different beats. Encourage the children to move to the beat and t when the music stops they must freeze in whatever position they are in.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions. AND Movement/ expresses through movement and dancing what is felt and heard to various musical tempos and styles.

Sing, Can You Make a Happy Face Jack-o-lantern. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8b4f5fhYuw&vl=en

Teach the children the Parts of a Pumpkin that is shared by primarythemepark.com. (See resources)

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Blocks

Give the children toy mice or make several origami mice that they can use to build a mouse house for.

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; participates in a variety of dramatic play activities that become more extended and complex.

Art

Put large pumpkin shapes on the easel. The children can paint them fanciful or add faces.

Creative Arts/Art; gains ability in using different art media and materials in a variety of ways for creative expression and representation.

Give each child a pumpkin shape. Have them collage cotton and leaves onto the pumpkin. Glue their origami mouse onto the pumpkin. On the top of the pumpkin write “This pumpkin is my home”.

Creative Arts/Art; gains ability in using different art media and materials in a variety of ways for creative expression and representation.

Library and Writing

Talk to the children about different kinds of homes that animals and people live in. Ask then children to draw a picture of where they would like to live and then write their description at the bottom of the page. (I would want to be a mermaid and live with Ariel. I want to live in my house with my family. I would live in a nest like a bird).

Social & Emotional Development/Self-Concept; begins to develop and express awareness of self in terms of specific abilities, characteristics, and preferences.

Sand and Water

Use Water Jelly Crystals in your table today. As they start to grow, talk to your children about the changes that they see happening.

Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to participate in simple investigations to test observations, discuss and draw conclusions, and form generalizations.

Dramatic Play

Make several mouse masks for the children to use in the center. They can pretend that they are mice and make a soft, warm house to sleep in. Provide extra pillows, blankets, or soft items that you might have.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from books, and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story.

Math and Manipulatives

Use sequencing cards for the children to put in first, than, and last order.

Ask the children to help name animals that would be small enough to live inside a jack-o-lantern. Write their responses on a pumpkin shape.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; begins to determine whether or not two shapes are the same size and shape.

Outdoor Play

When the owl swooped down, Mousekin ran into the jack-o-lantern house. Play a tag game where the children can pretend to be mice and the teacher is the owl. The teacher chases the children who then run trying not to get caught. There can be a safe area (a play house, a tree) that can be the mouse house.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story. AND Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; participates actively in games, outdoor play, and other forms of physical exercise that enhance physical fitness.

Transitions

Ask the children to help name other animals that might live in a forest, a zoo, a pond, or a pet store. Extend this by bringing in pictures of real animals from magazines and asking the children to name the animal and where it might live. Group the animals by habitat.

Science/Science Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Mouse starts with the letter /M/. Can the children think of other words that begin with the letter /M/?

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; shows growing awareness of beginning and ending sounds of words.

Mouse-house are rhyming words. What other rhyming sets can the children name?

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; progresses in recognizing matching sounds and rhymes in familiar words, games, songs, stories, and poems.