Can You Listen Like a Mouse

Materials

• sound cans (these can be made from film canisters: make 2 of each; place objects such as jingle bells, sand, water, tacks, flour etc. inside each canister and seal tightly either with a glue gun or duct tape)
• Use permanent markers to mark the bottom of matching canisters with the same color dot.

Read or tell the book Deer Mouse at Old Farm Road by Laura Gates Galvin (Smithsonian’s Backyard). Elicit that the deer mouse needs to use all of its senses.

Emphasize that mice have very good listening ears. They have to listen because sometimes an owl or a fox might want to eat them. A mouse needs to know when to run away fast.

Tell the children that each of the cans makes a sound when they shake it.

Challenge the children to use mouse ears to match the two cans with the same sounds.

Let the children know that there are color dots on the bottom of the cans so that they can check for correctness.

Place the cans into an activity center so that the children can play on their own.

Activity provided by:

Fontenelle Forest
1111 N. Bellevue Blvd.
Bellevue, NE 68005
www.fontenelleforest.org