Tag: picture books

Christmas, Winter

Cookie Stories-

Jennifer
six cookie stories for preschoolers
Cookie Stories

Every year I get really excited about baking and decorating Christmas cookies! My love of Christmas cookies has extended into cookie crafts and now, cookie stories:) Not all of these books are Christmas themed, so you can read about cookies all year long! Check your library for these ten books.

1. How to Catch a Gingerbread Man by Adam Wallace–

In this storybook-themed adventure in the “How to Catch” series, author, Adam Wallace, brings us a rhyming story of the Gingerbread Man. One day during story time, the Gingerbread Man leaps off the page of his book and takes off through the book store. The kids make a whole bunch of traps to catch him, but the Gingerbread Man’s storybook friends come to his rescue! The Gingerbread Man escapes all of the traps, but notices that the kids are sad that they can’t finish the book. The cookie leaps back onto the page so that everyone can finish the story. Grown-ups will enjoy seeing their childhood book friends come to the Gingerbread Man’s aid.

2. Tough Cookie: a Christmas Story by Edward Hemingway–

This book is so funny! Get ready to laugh your way through this updated gingerbread man story, featuring a tough cookie. Cookie claims to be a delicious sugar cookie, but he isn’t sweet and cookie isn’t fast. Cookie taunts Fox, who immediately catches Cookie. Fox tries to take a bite, but hurts his tooth! What a tough cookie! An unlikely friendship forms between the two and Fox sets out to help Cookie be his best cookie-self in this hilarious picture book.

3. The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett–

I absolutely love Jan Brett’s books! Her illustrations are fantastic and the gingerbread baby is so cute. In this twist on the classic folktale, a family makes a gingerbread baby who jumps out of the oven and runs through town. One after another, the people and the animals give chase. The boy, however, has a plan. He bakes a gingerbread house and the cookie, looking for a place to hide from everyone, runs inside. Now the gingerbread baby lives safely inside his gingerbread house.

In this non-holiday cookie picture book, an adorable cookie recalls its struggles in school and just not feeling smart. Sometimes we all get distracted, mixed up, and frustrated, even cookies! One day, Cookie gets a school assignment to create something. It could be anything! What should Cookie make? Finally, inspiration strikes and Cookie writes a poem. The class takes turns showing what they created. Each one has a different talent. It is Cookie’s turn to share. All of the other foods love the completely original, Cookie-created poem! Cookie realizes that everyone is good at different things, and just because you aren’t good at something, doesn’t mean that you aren’t a smart cookie.

Cookie stories: 'The Gingerbread Man Loose at Christmas" by Laura Murray

5. The Gingerbread Man Loose at Christmas by Laura Murray–

Lisa Murray’s Gingerbread Man has a whole series of adventures! In this rhyming Christmas book, the Gingerbread Man learns about the spirit of giving. The kids make cards, sing songs, and bake treats for their community. The Gingerbread Man knows just who he wants to make a card for and he sets out with his class to give their gifts. The Gingerbread Man gets separated from his class and his little cookie legs get hurt in the snow. He doesn’t give up and he hobbles up to the shop with his card to give out. Read this book to find out who the Gingerbread Man’s special card is for!

Cookie stories: 'The Gingerbread Pirates" by Kristin Kladstrup

6. The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kladstrup–

Cookies and pirates together in one sweet Christmas story! A boy and his mom make gingerbread pirate cookies for Santa. The boy’s favorite is Captain Cookie and he takes the captain to his room. After the boy falls asleep, Captain Cookie goes in search of his cookie crew, who he needs to save from being eaten by Santa! Along the way, the cookie discovers Christmas wonders and finally meets Santa himself. Captain Cookie challenges Santa in a daring attempt to save crew. Santa promises not to eat the gingerbread pirates before delivering a bit of his Christmas magic to the cookies. Pirate-obsessed and imaginative kids will enjoy this book and its magical ending!

Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?

7. Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar? by Bonnie Lass–

This book is the southwest version of the famous song. The pictures are awesome and preschoolers will love the sing-songy story. Turns out it was sneaky ants who took the cookies! But don’t worry, every gets a cookie at the end. I’ve read this to the library preschool storytime group many times and they have always enjoyed it. It’s fun to play the Who Stole Cookie game after reading this. My three-year old really liked this book and since it was just the two of us, we set up some stuffed animals to be players in the game with us.

The Duckling Gets a Cookie

8. The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? by Mo Willems–

My son loves this series by Mo Willems! The pigeon is in desperate need of some manners and the little duckling is just the one to show the pigeon how to ask nicely for something. The pigeon can’t believe that duckling got a cookie just by asking nicely and saying please. Come along on the pigeon’s hilarious journey to learn to say please and thank you.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

9. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff —

This book is a fun read! A boy gives a mouse a cookie, which leads to mouse asking for a glass of milk. After the milk, mouse wants to check his reflection in a mirror to see if he has a milk mustache. On and on it goes until mouse is thirsty again and wants another glass of milk, which makes it think of a cookie! This is a humorous story and helps preschoolers understand sequencing.

Cow Loves Cookies

10. Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson —

This is one of my son’s favorite books. I think we both have it memorized now! This is a super cute book about what foods farm animals like to eat. They are all very predictable except for the cow, who loves cookies! Preschoolers will love the rhyming, the repetition, and the fun sounds. Read this to find out why cow loves cookies so much. Karma Wilson is a very popular author, so your local library will probably have this book

Visit your library and checkout these cookie stories and other great cookie-themed picture books! I’ve joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to try and help cover the costs of this site. So if you buy something through one of my links on Amazon, then I get a small percentage of the sale (no extra cost to you). Thank you for your support! Happy reading 🙂

Find the Differences: My son loves “find the differences” activities and he asked if he could design one. He made this cute gingerbread themed Find the Differences (free downloadable PDF) worksheet. Can you find all 5 differences?

Cookie Cutter Craft: We turned some of our cookie cutters into stencils and made paper Christmas cookies!

Mosaic gingerbread man craft

Mosaic Gingerbread Man Craft: make a cute gingerbread man out of construction paper.

Animals

Dog Appreciation Day is coming up… let’s read DOG stories! And make crafts, count dogs, and have fun!

Jennifer
Maltipoo Dog Reading Laura Numeroff’s “If You Give a Dog a Donut.”

Did you know that August 26th is Dog Appreciation Day? Pretty cool! Let’s celebrate by reading dog stories, making a dog paper bag puppet, and doing a fun Dog-Themed I Spy challenge, !

DOG STORIES:

There are so many great dog stories out there to read — it’s hard to narrow it down to just five.

When I asked my son what his favorite dog book is, he immediately said Karma Wilson’s book, A Dog Named Doug. Doug the dog is a digging machine. He digs a holes to everywhere and gets into a bit of trouble along the way. The book ends happily with Doug digging a hole into his family’s bedroom for a bedtime cuddle. My son loves this book and he laughs every single time we read it. We have checked this out from our library numerous times, and we hope you will check it from yours too! It is also available on Amazon if you want to buy it.

Goodnight, Good Dog by Mary Lyn Ray is one of my son’s bedtime favorites! It is a sweet and soothing story that is perfect for bedtime cuddles. The dog isn’t ready to go to bed yet, and even though everyone and everything is sleeping, dog can’t help but think about its fun day. As dog explores the sleeping house, it begins to grow tired, but just a little bit. Eventually dog falls asleep in its moon-shaped bed and has sweet dreams until it is time to wake up and play again.

The dog in the story, Love is My Favorite Thing, by Emma Chichester Clark, reminds me so much of one of our dogs — both of them are so joyful and so full of LOVE (even if they do get into a little trouble)! I could substitute my dog’s name for the character’s name and it would basically be a true story! In this book, the dog, Plum, and her family show the unconditional love we all feel for our family, both two and four-legged.

If you are a fan of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, then you’ll also like Laura Numeroff’s If You Give a Dog a Donut. Turns out if you give a dog a donut, a great story ensues! This cute story is a fun read-aloud and good introduction to sequencing. Be prepared for your little one to request a donut to go with this book! Find a copy at your library, or buy it on Amazon.

Our last dog book is Pug Meets Pig by Sue Lowell Gallion. We discovered this book at our library and checked it out so we could read it at bedtime. This is a really cute story about a little pug who gets jealous of the new pet pig, who seems to disrupts all of pug’s routine activities. Kids experiencing their own bouts of jealousy with new siblings or classmates, as well as kids who are anxious about changes in their routines, can relate to pug’s feelings. Ultimately the two become friends and both of them learn that even though new changes can be worrisome, it can also lead to fun experiences and new friends!

DOG PAPER BAG PUPPET:

Make your own super cute dog puppet from a paper bag and construction paper!

First, pick out which color ears, nose, and tummy you want your dog to have. Cut out 2 ears (we made long, floppy ears), an oval tummy, and a small, round nose. Cut out a long, pink tongue – make sure it is long to partially hide it under the flap of the bag.

Now that your pieces are cut out, it is time to glue them on to your paper bag. We used a glue stick for this. Make sure that the folded side of the bag is facing you before you start glueing.

Glue on your ears, nose, and tummy. Then, lift the flap and glue your tongue down onto the bag, so that it partially under the flap. When you put your hand in the bag and move the flap, it will look like your dog is opening its mouth.

Last, pick out googly eyes for your pup. Attach them to complete your dog puppet.

I SPY CHALLENGE:

How many of each dog can you find in this picture? Write the number in the box next to the picture of each dog.

Dog-I-SpyDownload

Hope you enjoyed our Dog-themed fun!

To help cover the costs of this site, I joined Amazon’s Affiliate Program. This means that if you buy something through one of the links I posted, then I get a small percentage of the sale. Thanks for your support! Happy reading 🙂