1-2-3 Come Do Some Mitten Activities With Me

Do you read the Ukrainian folktale The Mitten, by Jan Brett? It’s one of my favorite winter stories and perfect for practicing the sequencing and retelling a story standards.

With that in mind, I designed some quick, easy and fun, mitten-themed activities.  First up is The Mitten story “slider” craftivity, that will help your students retell the story in the proper order.

Simply run the mitten and slider patterns off on white paper. Using construction paper or card stock adds to the sturdiness.

Children trim their mitten, then color, cut and glue their slider together. 
I pre-cut the mitten slits using an Exacto knife, so that children can easily insert their “storytelling strip”.

As they pull on the end of the “slider” the various pictures go through the mitten “window”, so that children can take turns retelling the story to a partner, then take their mitten home to share with their family, once again practicing the lesson.

I introduce the lesson by reading the story, then share my sample with the children.  We retell the tale together, using the picture prompts on the slider.

My students now know what’s expected of them, and are excited to transition to making a “mitten story slider” of their own. 

Another way students can retell the story, is with The Mitten Story Wheel.  It's a quick, easy & fun way to assess comprehension and practice sequencing as well.

There are full color patterns to use for centers, as well as a sample to share, plus a black and white pattern, so your students can make their own.

As a comprehension-assessment tool, and for more fine motor practice, another option is to have students cut up the picture sections, then glue them to the blank wheel in the appropriate order.

To practice ordinal numbers, have children write 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. on each piece.   I've also included "Sequence the Story” Puzzles.

Use the full-color versions for an independent center, and print the black and white pattern, so children can color, cut and arrange their own puzzle.

There's also a writing prompt worksheet, where students write what happened in the story. 

Since The Mitten story has eight animals climbing into a mitten, its a wonderful segue for practicing ordinal numbers too.  

The packet includes:
* An emergent reader booklet: Move Over Please, So I Won't Freeze, which reinforces a variety of Common Core Standards, along with ordinal numbers and verb practice.

* A mitten paper plate pocket "craftivity", which students make to keep all of their mitten-related work in.
* A set of ordinal number pocket chart cards

* A student-made, mitten matching game, where students match the animal character to the animal's name, or the ordinal number position it had in the story, or all three.
Children can do this independently, or pick a partner to play against.

* Ordinal number character assessment strip
* 2 graphing activities
* 2 writing prompts on one worksheet, which can be turned into a class-made book.

* Several mitten worksheets, including one that covers rhyming words, plus more verb-work. (Great for Daily 5 word work activities.) and . . .
* A certificate of praise bookmark that can be used to play another game. 

Finally, my kiddos absolutely LOVE making class books. They're a quick and easy way to practice a variety of standards.  Contributing a page for a class book, is super-fun for your kiddos, and will grab their attention from the get go.

Completed projects make a cute bulletin board display; afterwards, collate the pages and put the book in your classroom library. 

There are two writing prompts to make two books included in the packet.  Both are based on  The Mitten, by Jan Brett. 

In the first one, Our Mitten, the teacher loses a mitten. As children find it, they tuck something inside. 

Here, I wanted my kiddos to take size into consideration, and think of something that could realistically fit inside a mitten.

On their page, students state their name and tell what they put inside their teacher’s mitten and why, adding an illustration.

The Animals In Our Mitten, is the next book. The cover and pages, are in the shape of a large mitten.

Children fill in the blank with an adjective, animal and action verb. i.e. “A slow, green turtle shuffled into our class mitten.”

I feel that even PK kiddos can come up with a descriptive word and action for their animal, and believe it’s not too early to have children practice writing a vivid and complete sentence, however, I've also included a simpler page, where little ones simply name an animal and draw a picture.

I’ve further tied the packet into Brett’s folktale,The Mitten, by including an alphabetical list of 39 of the action verbs in her story, along with a worksheet.

There’s also a verb-definition poster, plus 39 action verb cards, and 11 character cards, which you can use for several games and activities. 

Today's featured FREEBIE is a shaving cream snowman. 

Equal parts of non-menthol shaving cream, mixed with Elmer's glue, dries all puffed up, creating amazing results!

It's our favorite winter craft.  Completed projects turn out absolutely fabulous! We get tons of compliments on our bulletin board too.

Well that's it for today.  Thanks for stopping by.  I'm sure the holiday break went fast for you as well. 

Here's hoping some of these activities get you excited for back to school, celebrating a fresh start in the New Year. 

"Whatever you do, or dream that you can do--begin it. Boldness has genuis, and power and magic in it." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe