Mice Week Food Adventures

1. Green Cheese and Crackers: Using green food coloring, color cream cheese green and serve with crackers.
2. A Mouse for Lunch: Place a pear half upside down on a small paper plate. Use spray cheese to make a tail. Raisins attached with a dab of the cheese will work for eyes.
3. Cheese Popcorn: Buy and serve already made cheese popcorn or pop some regular popcorn and add grated cheddar or parmesan cheese to it. Be careful with popcorn!
4. Mouse in a Hole: Let children poke a hole or tear a piece out of a slice of bread just like a mouse might do. Lay a slice of cheese over the hole and melt it.
5. Cheese Tasting: Have the kids sample several different types of cheese to see which one(s) they prefer.
   

Butterfly Week Crafts

1. Caterpillar: Use egg cartons. Cut in half lengthwise. Add pipe cleaners for antennae. Add facial features with permanent markers. Let children color or paint the caterpillars.


2. Cocoons: Let children wrap cotton batting around a craft stick or a small tree branch to simulate a cocoon.


3. Butterfly: Using tempera paint, paint the bottom of the children's feet. Have paper nearby and have them put one foot down towards the bottom of the paper. Then put the heel for the other food down, touching the toe of the other foot. This will become the butterfly body. Then paint children's hands and place on on either side of the body to create the wings. After the paint has fried, decorate the wings by gluing small paper or bits of fabric to it.


4. Finger paint: Using finger paint, let children create caterpillars and butterflies.


5. Roly Caterpillar: Have children cut out round colored circles to form a caterpillar. Add facial features. Then glue the caterpillar onto white construction paper.

Butterfly Week Food Adventures

1.) Vegi Caterpillars: Spread cottage or cream cheese on a stick of celery.

Add raisins for eyes.

2.) Fuzzy Caterpillar: Soften 8 oz. of cream cheese and 12 oz. of shredded American

cheese. Mix together. Let each child make five small round balls and roll balls

in parsley flakes. Arrange on a lettuce leaf. Add pimento pieces for eyes and

nose.

Use pretzel stick for antennas. Use pretzel stick for antennas.

3.) Butterfly Salad: Place crushed pineapple in the center of a lettuce leaf. Add

cherries for decoration to create a butterfly salad.

4.) Cocoon Snacks: Use refrigerated biscuit dough and put a chunk of cheese into

each one before baking. As children bite into them, explain what it might

be like to be in a cocoon.

5.) Buttery Food: Give children the experience of trying foods with the word butter

in them. Some foods to include are peanut butter, aple butter, buttermilk,

butter flavored crackers.

Mice Week Crafts

1. Glove Puppets for 5 Little Mice Finger play song. Templates will be available soon. You can find instructions on how to make glove puppets here.


2. Paper Heart Mouse: Out of gray or white construction paper, cut out a large heart (for the mouse body) and a smaller heart (cut in half for mouse ears). Have the kids glue on googly eyes and a pom pom pink nose. The pointed, bottom part of the heart is the mouse face. Help the kids glue the mouse body on to a piece of construction paper. Don't forget to give the mouse a tail (made out of a piece of yarn or string). His ears can be painted or colored in pink and glued on to the mouse head.


3. Paper Plate Clock: This can be used for the "Hickory, Dickory, Dock" song. The kids can either help you to create the clock or you can make it ahead of time and let them play with it. Write clock numbers around the rim of the paper plate. Cut out one small hand and one larger hand out of poster board. Fasten hands to the center of the plate with a paper fastener.


4. Mouse Prints: Have children use their fingerprints to make mouse pictures. Use finger paint or tempera paint.


5. Mouse Puzzle: Draw a large mouse on a piece of poster board . Cut the mouse shape out. Either color in ahead of time or have the kids color it in and then cut the mouse into several pieces. Have the kids practice putting the puzzle pieces together.

Families Week Books

"Little Fur Family" by Margaret Wise Brown

"Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch

"Daddy Kisses" by Anne Gutman

"Mommy Loves" by Anne Gutman

"Amelia Bedelia's Family Album" by Peggy Parish

Mice Week Books

"Mouse Count" by Ellen Walsh

"Mouse Makes Words: A Phonics Reader" Heling

"If You Take a Mouse to School" by Laura Numeroff

"Time For School Mouse!" by Laura Numeroff

"The Little Mouse, The Red, Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear" by Audrey Wood

"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" by Laura Numeroff

Butterfly Week Crafts

Carrot Stamp Caterpillar

Cut the end off of the fat end of the carrot to make a flat stamping surface. Set out some tempera paints and white paper.
Let the kids hold the carrot in their hands (using the end of the carrot as a handle) and dip the flat end of the carrot into the paint and onto the paper.
Show them how to stamp circles next to each other to create a caterpillar.
When the paint dries, they can use markers to draw on antennae, eyes, and legs.