The Mitten

The past few weeks in my room, we have been talking about hibernation, bears and winter. One of our favorite winter stories to read is The Mitten by Jan Brett. This story is a fun one for kids, but also an endless resource for teachers.  

We started off by retelling the story. My students completed an activity where they cut apart the animals, placed them into a mitten and used the pieces to retell the story. They had so much fun retelling the story not only to each other, but to their families at home as well.

        

The next day we discussed our favorite parts of the story and why. Being able to tell about a specific event in the story with a supporting reason is great way to build comprehension. The big sneeze at the end was definitely a popular event!  

The rich wording that is used in The Mitten is also a great way to strengthen vocabulary skills. As a class, we discussed what the words mean, created new sentences and even acted some out. My kids then completed a vocabulary book to practice using some of these new words.

Continuing our theme of mittens, one afternoon we made our own matching mittens. We generated a list of describing words and then wrote descriptive sentences about our mittens. My kids had fun trying to guess which mittens belonged to which friend - just by reading the descriptions!

        

Click on any of the pictures to view these activities and more!