If You Take A Mouse To School You'll Have A Lot Of FUN!!!

The Common Core packets using kiddy lit continue to be one of our most popular downloads. I started with The Kissing Hand added Chrysanthemum, then If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, and today I bring you If You Take A Mouse To School, which was one of the most requested books that I do a packet for.  I also just finished First Day Jitters.

Like all of the others, Taking A Mouse To School, follows the same format. it nails the Common Core State Standards: RI.K5,RI.K6,RI.K9,RI.K10,RL.K2, RL.K3,RL.K6, L.K1d, RI.1.9, RL.1.2, RL.1.3

I feel following a specific format when you do things, empowers students and builds their self-esteem. 

They feel smarter, because they know right from the start, what is expected of them and they can get "down to business"right away.

Less time is wasted because you are not reinventing the wheel preparing, nor are you having to continuously explain the directions and then having to repeat them to children who aren't listening or still don't "get it."

The packet includes:

• A beginning-middle-end story map that will help students retell If You Give A Mouse A Cookie
• A "favorite part" retelling "writing prompt" bookmark
• A compare and contrast Venn diagram with If You Take A Mouse To The Movies book
• Character, Setting and Event cards. (Laminate, put magnets on the back and put them up on your white board. Write down students' answers under the cards.)
• Question Words activity sheet, reinforcing the who, what, why, when, where, how words.
• Cover of book to label book parts + review author and illustrator
• Mouse "craftivity" writing prompt. My sample says: "I brought a baby elephant to school and he used the water fountain to take a bath and squirted water everywhere!"

The mouse "craftivity" makes a cute back to school 3-D bulletin board as the doors are slit open to reveal what "thing" each student has brought to school.

Make the schoolhouse extra special by having students write the name of your school over the door and gluing their picture in one of the windows.

This is also  great for a September writing prompt or Daily 5 activity. Click on the link to view/download If You Take A Mouse To School Common Core Packet.

This is truly a quick, easy and fun way to review a lot of common core state standards, so if there are other books that you’d like me to make packets for, just shoot me an e-mail.  diane@teachwithme.com or post a comment below.

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you can help them become what they are capable of becoming." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe