Gift Guide 
What You’ll Need
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 2 teaspoons shortening
- Maraschino cherries
- Wafer cookies
- Chocolate-drop candies
- Pumpkin seeds
What to Do
- Melt chocolate chips with shortening in a microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. If it’s not melted, microwave for 20 more seconds. Stir.
- Holding a cherry by the stem, dip it into the melted chips.
- Put the dipped cherry on top of the wafer cookie.
- Place the chocolate candy on the cookie and against the cherry, with the top pointing away from the cherry stem.
- For mouse ears, stick two pumpkin seeds up in between the cherry and the chocolate kiss.
- Keep your chocolate-cherry mice in a covered container in the fridge before serving.
Extend the Fun
Younger kids: You don’t usually want your child to play with his food, but when he’s got a mouse this cute, have fun with storytelling! Encourage your child to make up a little story about the chocolate-cherry mouse and his friends. If your child has trouble getting started, you can begin with a sentence or two and then ask questions to get his imagination off and running. When your child can tell stories and use a sequence of events, he’s developing literacy skills.
Older kids: With your child, cut up a variety of fruits and veggies into different shapes. Try to make circles, half circles, squares, and rectangles. Then give her a big plate or a cutting board so she can use the fruit and veggies to design a picture or scene. Talk with her as she’s playing, and use shape names frequently. Encourage her to describe what she’s doing and what she wants it to look like. This play is a tasty exploration of geometry and spatial sense.
