Yuletide activities for preschool, nursery and young children's home learning

Resource links ..
  View forum posts from the past 3 days
  Sign up for site newsletters
  Shop for resource titles
  Read mark making suggestions & ideas

 
    
Home | Store | Forum | What's New | Contact | About | Terms | Links | Storytime | Rhymes
Mischief Mouse's collection of craft activities for preschool and early years.
Printable resources to help support children's early learning and play
Magical Mammoth's recipes to play with and recipes to eat ..
Stitch squirrel provides a little tree space for some needle and thread projects  - handmade resources to support learning and development.
Calculator Caterpillar's range of activity ideas to support math, reasoning and problem solving.
Hope Hedgehog invites visitors to take a look through some articles of interest ...
Navigator Narwhal's outdoor - in activity ideas for preschool and early years play.


 
All new activity ideas for dough are being added to playdough-activities.com  

The Yule log mouse's winter home
Magical Mammoth - recipes, edible and to play with ..
Storytelling's rich and diverse history is part of our very being. From all corners of the world, adventures, heroism, sad and happy times are shared, messages passed on and their meanings celebrated through events and occasions. Winter, the solstice Yule and Christmas along with the changing weather, daylight and night and the much anticipated visit from Santa, Father Christmas or your country's giftbringer recall tales of friendship, family and food.

Enjoy this story-dough activity as you explore life through the coldest season and the message of how kindness helps to show our feelings.

Festive Christmas playdough activity featuring a Yule log mouse



The Yule log mouse rhyme

The yule log mouse lives a warm cosy life, saved from the fire by the woodman's wife. The day this happened it was cold, with laden ice and the kindly couple agreed some warmth would be nice.

So the woodman went to his shed full of tree! whilst Izzy his wife cleared the fire's place to be. She then went to help her husband with the wood, when 'squeak squeak squeak' she heard, near where he was stood.

'Stop chopping' she cried 'I think we have a guest', they both knelt down and saw a leaf filled nest. Inside a tiny mouse with twitchy whiskers fine, huddled in the darkness of the yule log's vine.

'Oh my' smiled izzy, 'We'll put you somewhere high, this winter is a harsh one, up there I'll drop you pie".

So the woodman snoozed happily in his chair by the flames, as Izzy hummed a tune to the card game she played. And snuggled on the shelf, the yule log mouse gave out a happy sigh from his winter warm house.

written and illustrated by Ruth Grimes © 2015


mouse Resources needed
 
 Playdough - handmade recipe
 logs - wood slices or laminated sheets of the yule log outline
 wax crayons to colour the outline yule log
 Leaf cutters - real leaves - artificial leaves
 The Yule log mouse's winter home - story rhyme sheet
 Role play mice: sylvanian family mice - printable mouse picture -
w
hite mouse play figure
- or handmade clay mice

Yulelog mouse Christmas story rhyme for playdough activities
Yulelog outline template
Role play mice characters - sized to promote mathematical language


mouse Play!  have fun rolling lengths of dough to form the log's vine branches. Cut out dough leaves, position artificial ones and add texture with scrunched up dried autumn leaves.
Drape ropes of dough ropes over a log, branch or slice of tree trunk or paper laminated yule log outline sheets.
Build snuggly warm nests for the mice or mouse to curl up and fall asleep in.
Ask the children how they think mice survive the winter.
What type of homes they build and where.
Use descriptive, positional language to promote maths, science and literacy.



Additional ideas and resources for preschool play
mouse Yule log stories - history, traditions and observances 
Use the wax crayons to take rubbing impressions from the tree log bark
 Vegan Yule log recipe from the veganfamily.co.uk  - scroll down a little on the page
Preventing mice from entering a house - humane traps, house maintenance & food disposal 





Please click to return to all Magical's playdough activity titles ..

Return to the Yuletide advent page