If You Give a Child a Book...

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     We’re back with a week filled with yummy book suggestions and ideas. This week we are featuring the works of Laura Numeroff. You may not recognize her name right off but we are sure that you will know her books or at least their titles. This week we are specifically featuring:

• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
• The Best Mouse Cookie
• If You Give a Moose a Muffin
  

• If You Give a Pig a Pancake
• If You Give a Cat a Cupcake
• If You Give a Dog a Donut
  

There are several more fantastic books in this series. We have chosen to focus on certain of the food related titles as part of our Bookworm Bakers division.

**If you don’t have the actual book at home, read alouds can be found on YouTube**

     These books are always a fun read and what we like to do with them is to actually make the food that the book features. Books and baking seem to go together and getting kids in the kitchen is not only educational but also builds life skills. Cooking with young children aids in hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. Cooking can also be used for patterning, sequencing and basic math skills. Children who help with cooking and baking also gain confidence, a sense of pride and accomplishment and learn about responsibility, not to mention the social and creative aspect of cooking together.  If you aren’t prepared or into cooking and baking, have kids make the featured food from paper, felt or other craft supplies. You can also include math skills by having your child(ren) count out chocolate chips, sprinkles etc., double or half a real recipe or figure out how many cookies, cupcakes etc. each member of your family will get to make it even.

     To make things even easier on yourself and to offer more fun options to your child, visit Mouse’s website. There you can be introduced to all the characters, see a list of all the books and find related activities and games. You can even watch the animated series on Amazon Prime Video, which my daughter absolutely fell in love with since she is already familiar with the characters. Read the books or watch a read aloud online and then check out the animated series. It will be a fun addition to the books.

Other titles in the series:

• If You Give a Pig a Party
• If You Give a Mouse a Brownie
• If You Take a Mouse to School
• If You Take a Mouse to the Movies
• Happy Birthday, Mouse!
• Happy Easter, Mouse!
• Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse!
• It’s Pumpkin Day, Mouse!
• Merry Christmas, Mouse!
• Time for School, Mouse!
  

Happy reading and baking!

-Kate @ BTBL

Follow us on Instagram (@btbliteracy) to keep up with the books we're reading and activities we're doing.

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Author

We are three generations that seek a way to get back to basics. It’s not that we eschew technology, but sometimes simpler is better, especially in raising our children. Mom was a reading teacher, Amanda is an early childhood educator and Kate a children’s literature specialist and former school librarian along with the latest additions, a daughter (now 4) for Kate, and two sons (now 1 and a newborn) for Amanda. We advocate reading aloud, the simple toys that use imagination and encourage creativity and learning in the kitchen, which can be a fun mess but also teaches life skills. Join us in raising healthy, happy, inquisitive and intelligent children.