A week on The Mitten

This week we are learning with Jan Brett's book, The Mitten.  In case you aren't familiar with this story, a boy looses one of his mittens and some animals find it.  Each animals joins the last, squeezing into the mitten until a mouse makes the bear sneeze and all the animals fly out.


Snow Cave - We were blessed with snow during Christmas break.  Yahoo!  So my hubbie was able to create a snow cave for the kiddos to enjoy.  We hope more snow will come so that he can make it bigger!

One kiddo was super excited to see that the water dripping from the gutter would quickly melt the snow on his shovel.

Circle Time - First I read our story to the kiddos, then they helped me act it out with these super cute felt animals I found on Etsy.  (Which saved me from making them!  Shwoo!)  Find the link:  Here!

Snack - Fairy Bread - This was a favorite snack in our home when my daughter was young.  We were going to cut our bread into mitten shapes, but we totally forgot.  We lightly buttered our bread and then sprinkled it with ... sprinkles!  Yum.
"It's the best thing in the entire universe!"

Contact Paper Mittens - The kiddos had a blast sticking their hands and shirts to the contact paper (it was sticky side up).  Then we retold the story and put all the animals into the mitten.  I got the cute animals as a free printable on this blog.

 

Mitten Play - I set out several pairs of mittens for the kiddos to enjoy.  This little girl LOVED the pink ones, when she tried them on she said:   "I just love them!  They're perfect!"  Then she played the rest of free time with them on.  Ha!

Circle Time - Today the kiddos acted our the story by climbing into a big mitten (a folded sheet) themselves!  They chose which animal they'd like to be, then climbing and squished in on queue, then when the bear sneezed everybody exploded out!

Sewing Mittens - On Monday the kiddos painted their hand and made a print on a piece of felt.  Today they got to try sewing around their mitten.  They did just great for their very first sewing experience!

Exploration - The kiddos had the chance to try playing in this snow scene.  Our snow is rock salt.  The kiddos enjoyed scooping the "snow" into the little carts and walking the animals through it.  It is strange stuff to play with.

Sparkly Snow Play Dough - The kiddos had a blast playing with this play dough today.  I just made homemade play dough and dumped in a ton of glitter.  A link to my favorite play dough recipe:  HERE!

I love play dough.  It is wonderful to work with.  It inspires the imagination, works on fine motor muscles, and is a wonderful venue for using manners and sharing skills.

Envelope Mitten - Toddlers - The kiddos colored the animals who squish into the mitten.  Then Ms. Sara cut them out and the kiddos got to put them in their envelope mitten.  Watch out when the bear sneezes!  

The mitten I just glued onto a smallish envelop.  When the bear sneezed, we shook the envelope out.

Animal Cracker Mittens - The kiddos enjoyed munching and gluing.  I printed this mitten pattern I think from Jan Brett's webpage.

Science - National Static Electricity Day - January 9 - Since Mr. Adam is a scientist, he helps me to know about these important celebration days.  Ha! - I chatted with the kiddos about static electricity.  They quickly realized they knew a lot about it and have had much experienced with it too!   We talked about:  slides, pulling off sweatshirts, feet on the carpet and the shocks we get.

 

Next I rubbed a balloon on each of their noggin's to lift their hair with static electricity and we stuck the balloon to the door.  Then they each got a balloon to experiment with.

 

Fold-able Mitten - The kiddos colored and cut the animals who squish into the mitten.  Watch out when the bear sneezes!

This was a bit of prep work, I basically made an accordion fold-able that tucked into an envelope.  Each animal had it's own square and we glued them on in order.   I put a pull tab on the end piece so when the bear sneezed the kiddo could simply pull the tab and all the animals pulled neatly out of the envelope.  Pretty fun.

What Else Could Fit In? - Mitten - I asked the kiddos what else they would squish into their mitten:  cat, cupcake, shark, roller coaster, peregrine falcon, and another cupcake.  Ha!

 

Learning Station - Mitten Match with Clothes Pins

 The kiddos matched up the mittens in the box.  Once they found a match, they clipped them together with a clothes pin.  Great hand eye coordination and fine motor work.  They found the sizes of the mittens silly, they went from super large down to their size!  Some of the kiddos liked trying the mittens on.

One kiddo tried on a pink pair of mittens just her size, "I just love them!  They're perfect!"

Learning Station - Clothes Line Abc's With Mittens -

 The kiddos worked in pairs to find, put in order and clip up the whole alphabet of mittens.  It took each group some time, but they worked well together and finished it!  I was proud of each of them!

I just free hand cut mittens from scrap paper.  This was a great fine motor activity, working those clothes pins.

The Mitten - What else could fit?

Today we talked about what other kinds of animals that we could fit into our story mitten.  After we chatted about some ideas, I set them loose with a page to draw on...

Some of the extra animals we ended up with are:  snowman, octopus, doggie, and a human being.  Super cute!

The Mitten - Pita Pocket Snack

For snack today, the kiddos got to place animal crackers into an edible mitten (a pita pocket)!

They really liked it.  One of my fours ate the whole thing, like a sandwich. animals and all.  Ha ha.

The Mitten - Torn Paper Project

The intention of this project was to tear small pieces of construction paper and then glue them on the mitten to decorate it.

One of my threes tried it out today and she decided bigger is truly better.

With some coaching she started out tearing small-ish pieces, but she quickly upgraded.  Ha ha.

We'll see how my fours do with it tomorrow.

It is a fine motor skill.  I forgot just how tricky it is to tear paper when you're first learning.

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Tried it with my fours today.  The girls did just great at getting smaller pieces, though they still needed some coaching.  My boy started small and then switched to large to be done faster.  Maybe I should make the mittens smaller next year.  Hmmm.

The Mitten - Animal Cracker Snack

For snack today we counted out animal crackers on a mitten and then ate them up in our "tummy mitten"!  Yummers!

The Mitten - Measuring

We did some measuring with mittens today.   
(This week we are learning from Jan Brett's The Mitten)


All of my fours were about 9 mittens tall!

I simply printed the mitten pattern from Jan Brett's website (http://www.janbrett.com/index.html) onto scrapbook paper and cut them into rectangles.  (Now that I think about it, I actually downloaded the image, then resized it to fit four mittens on a page, then printed it.)

We ran out of time, but we were going to measure other things in the preschool to see how they compared to their own height.  I think distances would also be fun to measure out.  How many mittens to the door?  How many to the restroom?  etc.

You could also do this with real mittens instead of the paper mittens.

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.