Preschool Co-Op: If You Give a Moose a Muffin

We adore the "If You Give..." books and I thought it would be fun to use one of them as a theme for preschool. Last week I taught our preschool and based our activities on the "If You Give a Moose a Muffin."
We started by reading the story. It was a bonus that we had the stuffed moose {my MIL got from Kohl's} as our storytime buddy. He listened with us.

Muffins
First, just like in the book, we made muffins. Each child got a turn dumping in a handful of raisins and mixing the batter. They also helped scoop out batter into the muffin tins. Sort of messy, but they liked it. The muffins baked while we worked on other activities.

Weather
Then, like Moose did, we went outside to feel what the weather was like. The kids made observations about the weather before we came inside. I had several weather symbols cutout from construction paper and the kids put the appropriate symbols for the day's weather on the board.

I also had a basket full of different types of clothes, shoes and accessories. Each child chose two things from the basket and we took turns explaining what weather we would need those items for - gloves for snowy & cold weather, an umbrella for rainy and cloudy weather, etc.

Sweater
In the story, Moose mended a button on the sweater he put on. So the kids picked out their favorite colored large button and, using plastic needles, sewed the buttons onto felt "sweaters". I admit that this was a bit advanced for them and they all required help. But they were all proud of their sweaters and it was good practice at fine motor skills.

Muffin Color Match
The kids each picked a muffin top {cut from construction paper} and took turns matching their muffin top with the muffin cup that had the color's name written on it. They really enjoyed this activity and we did it several times.

Puppets
Like Moose, we made mouse puppets for our puppet show. I had found some gray fleece socks on clearance at JoAnn's a while back and we used those. Since I wanted the kids to be able to keep their puppets to use for a long time without falling apart, I used hot glue to attach the pieces. The kids just picked out the parts of their mouse and put them on the sock where they should go. Then I glued them on while they were busy with their next activity.

Scenery
Moose made a big mess painting scenery for his puppet show. I didn't want to go the messy route so I had the kids use crayons instead of paint. I drew an outdoor scene {I'm no artist so it's pretty basic} and they each picked a part to color while I worked on the puppets. It's funny to watch the difference between how the girls and boys color. Both girls carefully colored in the lines. The boys had a slightly different, more "free" approach.
Before doing playing with our puppets in the makeshift puppet theather, the kids snacked on their muffins. They got two types of jam on their plates and practiced spreading the jam on with a butter knife.
Puppet Show
I wasn't sure how into the puppet show the kids would be. Of course they loved playing in the puppet theater {which we made from a cardboard box}, but they didn't get into the puppet acting or storytelling much on their own. They mostly just played which is fine.


It was a fun lesson. Check out this site for more activity ideas from the book {I used several of them here}.