"If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" Mouse Puppet Art Project

This book by Laura Numeroff and Illustrated by Felicia Bond is so cute!  My kids loved it!  I thought it would be fun to create a Mouse Paper Bag Puppet to go with the story.  I'll read the story using my puppet.  Then the students can trace and cut the overalls, paws, ears, cookie and milk...  Because "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie"  he's going to want a glass of milk to go with it!

Here is the pattern you can print out:

I used colored card stock and a glue stick for the paper and tacky glue for the googly eyes, yarn whiskers, pom pom nose and overall buttons.

The base of the milk can be cut on a fold - that way you can just glue the edges and put the straw inside.

I'll make my own with them so they can see how it all goes together and where to draw the eyebrows, stitching, mouth, etc...  

There is a piece of pink under the flap of the bag for the inside of the mouth and the cookie or straw will fit inside if they want to pretend he's drinking his milk - or eating his cookie.

Lots of imaginative play can ensue once this little guy is complete!

"Harry The Dirty Dog" Storybook Art Lesson

This is a fun art activity to go with "Harry The Dirty Dog" by Gene Zion, Illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham.

 
I thought it would be fun for the kids to create a stand up version of Harry - they can play with him when they finish making him.  I'll read the story and then the students will make their own clean and messy Harry The Dirty Dog.

I began by creating a version of Harry that could be cut after folding an 8 1/2 X 11" piece of card stock and watercolor paper.  After folding the paper in half and tracing the outline of Harry with his back on the fold you'll cut everywhere around Harry except his back - which is the fold.  I have attached a pdf of the pattern:

My class is preschoolers so I will cut out the shape from card stock and watercolor paper for them.  Older students can use the pattern as a template for tracing.  

The internal features (eyes, mouth, spots, fur, legs, ears etc...) will be drawn freehand.

The card stock Harry is finished with a black and grey colored pencil.

The watercolor paper Harry is finished by first drawing the features with pencil, then going over everything except the spots with a Sharpie.  Next use a white crayon over all the white spots, draw kind of heavily with the crayon so it will resist the black watercolor paint.  Finally do a black

watercolor wash over Harry and let him dry.

Have more time?  How about making his sweater or his seaweed disguise from the other Harry stories? 

 Lots of fun!

"Put Me In The Zoo" Art Lesson

I'm doing a series of art lessons for preschoolers based on storybooks.  Kohl's had the book by Robert Lopshire and Spot, the stuffed animal, and I couldn't resist this colorful and fun guy AND the story is about colors.

I'm going to read the book to the children and then I'm going to give the kids the yellow shape of Spot:

They will fill in the feet, toes and face with a black colored pencil.

Then they will us a spot to paint the spots - or a dot to paint the dots!

These are small pom poms dipped in paint and used to "Print" the spots.

We'll glue Spot to a white piece of paper and add the juggling balls or spots with a little trail behind them to show movement or action.  I'll demonstrate this and we'll discuss how artists and cartoonists use this technique.

The final step is to glue a black Pom Pom nose on Spot.

Here is the pattern for Spot:

I'm going to introduce complimentary colors as I paint my spots, trying to put blue and orange near each other and also red and green.  Purple will go with the yellow background.  All three sets of complimentary colors are on Spot.