Many of you know of Mo Willems. He writes brilliantly hilarious books for children like "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" and the Elephant and Piggies series. My mission is to buy every book. We have a lot, but we need more! Those I just mentioned are his most popular from what I gather anyway, but I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to find the one I'm going to talk about in this post.
Our family took a trip to the Good Zoo at Oglebay Park in West Virginia about three years ago. Actually we go every year, but this particular visit stands out in my mind as the first time my daughter saw mole rats at the zoo.
She saw the mole rats and then. she fell. in. love.
That's right. She thought they were adorable!! I think ewww! But, she can see the beauty in just about anything that's not.
After that, I was determined to find anything about naked mole rats. I found a stuffed animal naked mole rat on Amazon and while looking there, I was lucky to find this book by Mo Willems - "The Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed".
Are you kidding me?? It couldn't be more perfect! How could I have not known about it before then! The book is about a naked mole rat named Wilbur (name is also perfect) who likes to get dressed. Adorable!
Now, three years later, my 6-year-old daughter still loves them so I picked this book to read to her 1st grade class for my room mom reading series. I also brought along a picture of an actual mole rat. I was surprised to find out only 3 of the 24 students in her class had seen one. I guess they learned something that day. They may not be happy about not getting the image of the naked mole rat out of their minds, but they learned something new. Just kidding. They did say "ewww a lot, though."
Here's the pic I showed them:
See what I mean about the ewww part?
Ok. Moving right along.
I hope you enjoy the rest of these photos:
Here's a picture of the book along with one of the Wilbur sugar cookies I made. Do you they look like him? I used a deliciously yummy sugar cookie recipe from a friend of mine, then tinted white canned icing (after adding some powdered sugar to the can) with one drop of red food coloring. I used miniature marshmallows for the teeth. I cut them in half and then in half again (in fourths for those of you who are better at fractions than I am). I also bought black icing and squeezed it into a sandwich bag. I snipped a tiny hole in the corner and squeezed dots for the eyes.
I made a coloring sheet for the class. Here's a picture of everything for that day, including the picture my daughter colored of Wilbur.
Maybe you can find a place that has mole rats on display near you and make a day of it! Bake some "Wilbur" cookies, read the book and talk about your new friends, the mole rats. Believe it or not, they are pretty amazing creatures.
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