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June 18, 2012

Naked Mole Rat Play Dough Activity

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This month’s Virtual Book Club for Kids author is Mo Willems.  We love Mo Willems here and ended up reading, and rereading, 4 of his books last week–The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, and Pigs Make Me Sneeze!  Such great reads, we definitely recommend all of them!

Once of the most reread books was Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed.  It’s the story of a naked mole rat who likes to wear clothes.  In fact he likes to wear clothes so much he opened his own shop.  His clothes-wearing makes the other mole rats very uncomfortable and they take the issue to Grand-pah for consideration.  You’ll have to read it yourself to see how it ends, but I will go out on a limb and predict you’ll love it.

They loved the idea of the naked mole rat getting dressed and wanted to make their own mole rat to dress up.  The 6 year old drew a naked mole rat on construction paper and we laminated it so we could reuse it.

 Then the kids got to work!  They made tons of play dough clothes and accessories for our naked mole rat.  Including a light saber!

After they had all the socks and sandwiches and shirts and light sabers they needed it was time to dress him up!

They used the play dough props to reenact parts of the story and to role play how the mole rat should react to his friends when they don’t like that he wears clothes.  All without any prompting from me.

Doing crafts and activities to go along with a book not only increases your child’s enjoyment of the story it helps develop their comprehension skills and allows them to better internalize the author’s message.  The activities don’t have to be elaborate or “pinnable”, it’s the simple activities that are can be the most loved.  Especially, when kids are given the chance to do them over and over and over again.

Make sure to check it out to see all of the Mo Willems book and activity ideas that other bloggers come up with this month!

About Megan Sheakoski

Megan is the creator of Coffee Cups and Crayons, a blog full of simple fun and learning. She believes that kids’ activities don’t have to be complicated to be fun and that learning is better with play.

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Comments

  1. Kristina says

    June 18, 2012 at 11:03 am

    This is awesome! What a creative idea AND a fun way to incorporate the playdough pledge too! I actualy haven’t read this book yet, but will need to find it and then try your activity with my son. He would love it. Thanks so much for linking up to the Mo Willems blog hop this month!

    Reply
    • Megan says

      June 18, 2012 at 7:32 pm

      We love Mo Willems so it was lots of fun to participate! And I do think you would like the book–it is one of my favorites. Thanks so much for stopping by!

      Reply
  2. Danielle says

    June 18, 2012 at 12:35 pm

    Love this idea! Do you think your 6 year old would come draw one for me? She did a much better job then I think I could do!

    Reply
    • Megan says

      June 18, 2012 at 7:30 pm

      Ha! She probably would! I was pretty impressed with how she did too. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!

      Reply
  3. Lorie says

    June 18, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    Absolutely adorable! I love the combination of art and play dough. So glad you shared this! Going to pin it!

    Reply
    • Megan says

      June 18, 2012 at 7:29 pm

      Thanks! We are very exciting about participating in the virtual book club this summer! And have had a blast with the first author! He has been a favorite around here this last kindergarten year. So glad you stopped by!

      Reply
  4. Trisha @ Inspiration Laboratories says

    June 19, 2012 at 12:19 am

    Love your use of play dough and connection to the book. We really enjoy the naked mole rats, too. I think we’ll have to pull out some play dough and help them get dressed.

    Reply
    • Megan says

      June 21, 2012 at 2:57 pm

      Definitely! So easy and fun! Thanks so much for stopping by!

      Reply
  5. The Monko says

    June 19, 2012 at 8:41 am

    Love this activity, I’ve shared it on my Blog FB page.

    Reply
    • Megan says

      June 21, 2012 at 2:55 pm

      Thanks so much for sharing! And visiting! We’ve had quite a lot of fun with our naked mole rat!

      Reply
  6. Liz Hallberg says

    June 19, 2012 at 10:40 am

    This is awesome! I love the reusable mat, and how play dough was incorporated to make some seriously stylish designs. Sharing this on our FB page 🙂

    Reply
    • Megan says

      June 21, 2012 at 2:54 pm

      Thanks so much! They had a blast with it and already have plans for more characters to make clothes for! Thanks so much for stopping by!

      Reply

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