Researchers can find out the size of a real moose and then the class can measure the classroom door.Using pizza cardboard or any circle shapes, children can draw the action of the circle stories around the edges of the circle so that there is neither beginning nor end.One of the puppets should remind them of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. You'll want to make the jam, the muffins and the puppets from the book.Does she know what's going on? Is she like Chester in Nothing Ever Happens on My Block by Ellen Raskin? Could it be fall? summer? And let's take another look at that mother. What time of year is it in If You Give a Moose a Muffin? Blackberries ripen in the summer don't they? But the mother is raking leaves.Do the tracks on the kitchen floor remind you of Pat Hutchins' The Doorbell Rang? Follow the moose's tracks to see where he's been. Help the children notice the cover of the book with the picture that goes across the whole thing.

Does this boy often offer muffins to passing strange moose? cookies to strange mice? What else has he been handing out? What will he do for the next book?

The moose is chewing whatever in the woods, smells the cooking and the boy tosses him a muffin from the window.

Speaking of beginnings, look at the beginning of this one.

As with 'Mouse,' this story ends where it begins with another demand for a muffin with jam. As you can tell, the guest is a moose this time who wanders in, ready for a muffin with homemade blackberry jam. In each book, a simple, kindly action on the part of the little boy leads to a whole series of demands on the part of the recipient. If you liked If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, you'll like If You Give a Moose a Muffin by the same team.

If you give a moose a muffin author