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Ratatouille is fantastic movie for a kindergarten unit study. Explore excellent children’s literature, visit France, and make a recipe! Read on for resources and ideas for your kindergarten lesson plans.
Meet Remy, the star of Disney – Pixar’s Ratatouille. As a little mouse in a big world, he faces many challenges, though his biggest obstacle is persevering to achieve his dream of being a chef!
We are studying France as part of our Around the World Kindergarten program. Check out more resources for a French Unit Study here.
Ratatouille Activities
Visit the Eiffel Tower
Take a virtual field trip to the Eiffel Tower with Freeschool. Click here to stream on YouTube or watch the embeded video below. Run time: 3:13
Build it
After your field trip to the Eiffel Tower you can build your own!
STEM activity: How tall can we build it?
Talk about the wide base of the Eiffel Tower.
See if your tower becomes more stable when you widen the base.
Draw it
After building the Eiffel Tower, learn how to draw it! Art for Kids Hub on YouTube has a very cute video with instructions. Watch and practice on your own! Stream it here.
Cooking
This cookbook has healthy and delicious family recipes – not your average kid stuff. Try the delicious Salade Nicoise or Mini Quiche recipes to go with your French theme or bake chocolate chip cookies for Mouse!
If you decide to source a recipe online, be sure to print it out. Reading a recipe together is a great way to incorporate reading into daily life without sitting down to read a book.
Read and measure together to practice math skills, and practice following step-by-step directions.
Companion Reading List for Ratatouille
Picture Books about Other Nice Mice
Laura Numeroff’s If You Give a Mouse… series is funny and silly and a great introduction to cause and effect for young readers. As you read, remember and retell the story: “If you give a mouse a _____, what will he do?”
Practice recalling events in order, and add new ideas for the mouse as you re-read the text. After you read this book, find ways to apply it to your child’s day. What happens when you give your child a cookie? Does she ask you for some milk, too?
I love the Free Printable Sequencing Cards from TPT found here. I actually used something similar with my first graders when I was teaching! These would be so fun to put into your own book, poster, or use to play a sequencing game.
Learning Math with Literature and FOOD!
Sticking with the cooking theme, try Each Orange Had 8 Slices and The Grapes of Math for your math portion of the unit. Though not strictly food inside, these books are wonderful for practicing skip counting and grouping objects.
When you’ve finished, use food in your house to practice skip counting skills: berries, grapes, raisins, orange or apple slices.
Leveled Readers about Mice… and More Soup!
Read about a tricky little mouse escaping disaster in Arnold Lobel’s Mouse Soup and Mouse Tales. These books and Lobel’s Frog and Toad series were some of our favorite leveled readers. The stories are inspiring with simple sentences but interesting story lines that motivate emerging readers.
After reading the story play Mouse and Weasel and re-create the story, adding ingredients from your imagination.
Your New Favorite Chapter Book About a Mouse
We loved Beverly Cleary’s children’s classic The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Compare and contrast Remy and Ralph’s experiences being a small mouse in the big, human world. Your child will LOVE this book!
More Stories about Mice for Kids
Stuart Little
An American Tale
The Tale of Despereaux
There are so many great movies and shows starring mice! Mickey, of course, is the first that comes to mind. But Stuart Little, Fievel, and Despereaux are a few of our very favorites. We haven’t gotten to these chapter books yet, but I’m sure we will soon!
Shows to supplement your lesson plans
Check out Reading Rainbow’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie episode. Season 1, Episode 1 is included with your Prime membership.
“We love our bread. We love our butter, but most of all we love each other.”
If your child took an interest in France, be sure to watch the Madeline series (included with Prime) and read the award winning book series.
Top geography posts from the Resource Room:
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Movie and a Big Idea
Ashley helps parents who want to homeschool find the resources they need to successfully teach their children. Ashley is a former teacher, current homeschooler, published author, and designer behind Circle Time with Miss Fox printables as well as the creator of this website, The Homeschool Resource Room.
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