Soumsoum the Mouse (Al-far Soumsoum )

ABOUT THE BOOK
FAMILY ACTIVITIES

Soumsoum the Mouse (Al-far Soumsoum )

By Leo Lionni

While the other field mice work to gather grain and nuts for winter, Soumsoum sits on a sunny rock by himself. “I gather sun rays for the cold dark winter days,” he tells them. Another day he gathers “colors,” and then “words.” And when the food runs out, it is Soumsoum, the dreamer and poet, whose endless store of supplies warms the hearts of his fellow mice, and feeds their spirits during the darkest winter days. Parent suggestions will focus on each person’s unique value in a community and the importance of “food for the soul.”

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The book was translated into a rhyming text in classical Arabic from English. English title is Frederick.

Family Activities

Video

Dear Parents,

“The value of every person is found in what he is best at.” A beautiful saying by the Imam Ali bin Abi Talib (may God bless him), which reminds us that each of us, whether young or old, has a role in life, a role in our family and in our society. Within each child is a little “Soumsoum,” who is different and unique, and whose role may be hidden from us at first sight, but might express uniqueness if the opportunities are given to them.

Here are some suggestions for activities to do with our child after reading the story together:

Family Activities

We can browse the book with our child and look at its drawings. We can talk about what the drawings tell us about how each mouse prepares for winter. We can then search for our friend, “Soumsoum.” Is his drawing different from the drawings of his companions? How?
Mice store grain and straw for the winter days, and Soumsoum stores the colors and scents of summer. We can have a conversation with our children about our preparations for the approaching winter: What do we store in our homes and what do we prepare? We can also talk about our preparations as a family when we have a project together, such as going on vacation.
“It’s not fair!” A sentence we often hear from children (and adults too). Some of the mice might have also said that as they worked hard while Soumsoum sat dreaming. We can chat with our child about feelings of anger and frustration in situations like these, and compare them to similar situations that our child encounters in their daily life.
Let’s act! We can use ready-made animal puppets or make finger puppets, or simply “stick” little ears on our thumb and draw a mouse’s face! We can act a specific situation, such as imagining the dialogue between the mice when they get cold and bored, or when they watch Soumsoum the dreamer as they work…
The mice used their imagination to overcome their hunger and boredom. We can take our child on a journey through their imagination: we can close our eyes and imagine that we are in a beautiful place.What do we get from our senses? Or: we can think of something interesting that happened with us, or that we would like to happen to us.
We can play language games. For example, we can search for words that rhyme (red-bed-shed), or we can choose adjectives from the text (sweet, beautiful, red, yellow…) and play the “similarity” game, where we can ask our child to complete a sentence: …is red like…
Together, we can read the poem “Soumsoum” at the end of the story, and draw what it suggests to us. We can also paint mice burrows in black and white, and their colorful world above ground in spring and summer.

تبسط حكاية الفأر سمسم العديد من الأفكار لأنشطة مع الأطفال وأهاليهم، نقترحها عليك: