The Mitten

This week we are learning from Jan Brett's book, The Mitten:





Jan Brett has a website (http://www.janbrett.com/index.html) which has many fabulous things to help teach from her books.  On the site I found a black line of a mitten and each of the animals who squish into it. 

I wanted the kiddos to be able to retell the story at home to their families.  So I printed off a large mitten for each of them and cut it out with a blank sheet of cardstock behind it.  Then I punched holes around both sheets so the kiddos could sew their mitten.  I tied a piece of yard to the bottom hole.

 Then the kiddos colored the animals and I taped them to a coffee stirrer stick.  Now the kiddos could put the animals in their mitten and pull them out more easily.

While we worked on these, my fours were already getting into the spirit of it.  Some decided to change the order the animals squished into the mitten.  Another wanted the owl to be the one to sneeze the animals out.

We also talked a bit about the reality of the story.  Could all those animals really fit into a boy's mitten?  No, so it's a pretend story.