“BOOM!, BOOM!, BOOM! The Bear will tromp through the forest on his big, hungry feet, and SNIFF! SNIFF! SNIFF! find the strawberry…”  ~Don and Audrey Wood 1984

Today we are doing something new! We are participating in a Summer Virtual Book Club.

This month’s authors are Don and Audrey Wood. These two have been my favourites for a good 18 years. And this book in particular, is close to my heart. The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear. The illustrations are drool-worthy, the words are simple and delightful, and they lend themselves to great storytelling action. You can’t help but fall in love with this book.

We started out with reading the story together. We sniffed and stomped, we giggled, and slurped…

And then we packed ourselves into the van and we drove to the pet store…

We picked out our own little mice to bring home. Not real ones!! Our cat, Mr.Pickles, would have had too much fun with real ones! We chose little fuzzy grey mice from the cat toy section, instead!

When we got home, we got busy making little box houses for our mice.

What else does little Mouse need?

We used an inexpensive dishcloth from the dollar store to cut up and use as a tablecloth for little Mouse.

The smalls decided little Mouse needed something soft in his house for sleeping on. We used shredded paper…

Now little Mouse needs a strawberry, of course!

We cut and pasted strawberries with construction paper and glue sticks.

Oh, and we can write our names on the lids so we don’t get them mixed up…

And now we have our own little boxes for little Mouse…

What’s that, you say? You’re hungry now? How about some red ripe strawberries?

Did you know this Summer Virtual Book Club is also a blog hop? That means you can link up your Audrey and Don Wood book ideas with us! Head on over to Toddler Approved and join the blog hop at the bottom… it will be your turn to link-up! Plus, you’ll see all the other fabulous ideas that other bloggers have linked up! While you’re there, grab the book club button and put it on your blog so others can link back! If you don’t have a blog to link up, don’t worry! Head on over anyway to see all the other great book related activities in the blog hop.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Arlee, Small Potatoes