If YOU Give A Mouse A Cookie STEM Challenge | Build a MOUSE HOUSE

Laura Numberoff’s book are my FAVORITE of all-time books series. I was so lucky to meet her years ago when I first began my teaching journey in Orlando, FL. Her and Tomie DePaolo were speaking at a teacher conference. I bought all of their books, got my autographs and read them every year religiously to my class during author studies.

In 1985, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie was finally published after she received nine rejections. Her story inspired me to teach students how they should never give up on their dreams. I had a lot of fun using her books as companions for other lessons in my classroom.

One of my favorite lessons was for students to build a mouse house the character. It had to have all the rooms that were in the story. I tied in counting square tiles for the little ones while they created a floor plan with square or tissue paper tiles. They used lincoln logs or blocks to build the walls of the room and I would challenge them to complete the task in a certain amount of time. Students also had to make sure their paper mouse would fit inside the house they built. During centers, student made up their own adventures about the mouse with the house they built while writing stories. The students loved it! Of course we ended our unit with COOKIES!

This year I added a way for older students to get in on the fun! They use grid paper to make a blueprint of the floor plan. Then, they have to solve the area in square units and measure the walls with rulers. Here is an example of a mouse house for 2nd-4th graders:

Kindergarten and First Grade

Don’t worry, I added all the printable to this unit to keep it simple for the little ones and still tie in math elements. Teachers who teach multiple grade levels love the ease of differentiating the material with their students!

Animated Series

Not only can you explore all of Laura Numeroff’s books, she has a new Amazon prime animated video series that is amazing to share with students. Check out #IfYouGiveaMouse Videos to see all the characters in her most popular books!

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