The Secret Life of Squirrels Book and Activities

Because of this book and our own visiting squirrels I felt doing a Unit on Squirrels would be fitting!

I came across this book at Barnes and Noble before Christmas, The Secret Life of Squirrels.  Since we have a few resident squirrels who visit us at least once per day I knew my kids would really enjoy it!

The Author and Photographer of the book, Nancy Rose, captures candid photographs of squirrels in her backyard.  All of this happens on her backyard deck  where she sets up homemade miniature scenes catching visiting squirrels in adorable human like poses as they search for hidden peanuts!

My daughter giggles while I read this book and as we look at the pictures of the squirrels doing things like washing clothes, enjoying ice cream, wagon rides and so much more!

I've been taking some pictures of our own squirrels.  I've tried finding markings on them to see if it's the same squirrel but they have been different.  Each squirrel comes to our back door and really tries to get our attention as you can see in these pics.  And if I don't see them right away they 'knock' until they get my attention.....check out these photos:

Anyone home?

Peek-a-boo we see you!

Holding on to our backdoor handle

This day we gave him a special treat a big fat walnut!  Hence, the name Mr. Walnut

The more brave squirrels eat right at our back door.  However, this little guys runs to our tree to feast

Since we've snapped so many pics we thought we would pair this book with a craft by making a stick picture frame, just like they do in the book. We simply gathered some sticks from our backyard, printed a picture and now have Mr. Walnut hanging on our key holder in the kitchen. 

At the time we were reading this book we working on the letter S so I incorporated some Squirrel activities by printing some free squirrel printables like mazes, squirrel facts and even made up our own graph.  Through our squirrel facts we learned that squirrels are herbivores and require fruits and veggies in their diet.  The graph I made up is very simple.  I thought we would see which foods the squirrel likes best.  So we included peanuts, apples and grapes. 

After our graph was complete we tried giving our squirrel a strawberry.  In this pic you can see him going for it and I can tell you he devoured the strawberry!

We have really been enjoying nature over the past few weeks and getting to know our wildlife.  We've also been feeding the birds with our very own Bird Seed Mittens.  Even though it's cold outside and snow everywhere we are still trying to be involved with what goes on outside!