If You Give a Mouse a Brownie Book Companion

Dive deep into If You Give a Mouse a Brownie with your kids with this free printable book companion. Focus on rhymes, blends, word work, and more!

I love activities that allow me to bring a book to life. And, when the book is a kid-favorite, that is even better.

Preschoolers love Laura Numeroff’s circular stories in the If You Give… series. If You Give a Mouse a Brownie is no exception.

This book companion allows you to take the book to a whole new level when you work on letter identification, matching cartoon images with their real pictures, beginning reading skills, and more.

If You Give a Mouse a Brownie Book Companion

This low-prep activity pack is designed for use with preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students. From letter recognition to emergent readers, there’s something in this book companion for a wide range of skill levels.

And, as requested in my Facebook group, I’ve included both color and black/white graphics. The black and white pages can be printed on colored paper, printed on white paper and colored in, or just printed on white paper and left alone. All of these options will help frugal teachers save on ink.

What You’ll Find in This Book Companion

WORD CARDS

This pack includes two sets of word cards – one with clipart graphics and one with real images. You can choose to use one set or both. The clipart images resemble the graphics in the book so they make a great companion to the story.

However, it is important for kids to be able to make connections between those clipart images and the real images they represent. When you combine the two sets, you can have your kids match the pairs. You can also spread them out facedown to create a memory match game.

You can use them to help your kids practice sequencing the story or putting the cards in ABC order. The possibilities are endless.

EMERGENT READER

Once your learners are familiar with the picture/word cards, you can present the emergent reader. This is available in both color and black/white.

It features all of the images from the picture/word cards along with the sight words “This” and “is”. The predictable text will help young readers become familiar with the sight words featured so they can read the book to mom, dad, or a sibling.

BEGINNING SOUND SORT

This is a quick and easy sorting activity. It’s also available in color or black/white. One card from each page features the letter M and B. The other five cards on each page feature images that begin with one of those sounds.

Kids can sort these on the table, in a pocket chart, or on the fridge (if you stick magnets on the back).

RHYMING CARDS

This is another quick center activity. Cut the cards apart, spread them around, and have kids match the rhyming pairs. Once they’ve matched all the rhymes, they can read the sentence they’ve created… “___ rhymes with ___.”

BR- BLENDS

This activity sheet focuses on br- blends. Children will find and color all of the br- words in the grid at the top of the page.

Then, they’ll practice writing some of them. All of the words they will write can be found in the grid at the top of the page.

Finally, they’ll choose a br- word of their own to illustrate.

LETTER IDENTIFICATION

Kids will color each letter according to the key at the top of the page. They can also use dot markers if they’d prefer. They’ll identify both uppercase and lowercase letters.

CAUSE AND EFFECT 

Cut out the boxes at the bottom of the page. Kids will match each cause with the correct effect. Each scenario is taken directly from the story.

OU/OW SORTING

Finally, kids will practice sorting ou/ow sounds. This is an activity that works best with older students. However, if you’d like to use it with your younger ones, you can fill in the blanks on each disc before having your little ones sort the sounds.

You can make this a reusable activity by laminating the sorting page and discs. Then, put velcro dots on the back of each disc and the other half of the dot on the sorting mat.

I recommend these resources for completing the activities in the If You Give a Mouse a Brownie Book Companion:

• If You Give a Mouse a Brownie picture book
• scissors or paper cutter
• glue stick
• dot markers
• pocket chart
• laminator

Tara

Tara is the brains behind Homeschool Preschool, where her journey from preschool and public school teacher to homeschooling mom of three fuels her passion for early childhood education. With a blend of expertise and firsthand experience, Tara’s writings offer practical tips and engaging resources to support families in creating meaningful learning adventures at home.