Mittens

There is something appealing about mittens! Whether it is their bright colors or interesting textures, mittens are fun to wear and explore. During the cold months of winter a mitten theme is just the things to warm up little hands and hearts!

Language & Literacy

Books

Caps, Hats, Socks And Mittens

 The Mitten Gift Package

  The Mitten Tree 

 My Red Mittens

 The 3 Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens

  Runaway Mittens

Circle Time: Create a class/group graph of the different types of mittens or gloves the children wear.

Read: The Mitten by Jan Brett… Print the characters from this book from the Jan Brett website www.janbrett.com .  Find or make a big white mitten.  (Two pieces of white felt sewn together works well.) Or purchase the The Mitten Gift Package that goes with the story by Jan Brett!

Literacy:  Have the children retell the story using these props.  Use them when you tell the story.  Or add Velcro dots to the back of the pictures to use them on a felt board.

 

Read: The 3 Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens- Cut felt shapes of three kittens, a mommy kitten, and the mittens, or buy a precut set like Dress-Up Kitties Pre-Cut Soft Felt Storybook ,help the children retell the story using the felt shapes. 

Game: Kitten Mitten Game- After telling the story, tell the children some kittens may have lost their mittens in the classroom. Give one child a kitten puppet to wear and hide a mitten in the classroom without the child seeing. Have one child be the looker, give him or her a kitten puppet to wear, ask the other children to tell the kitten if she/he is hot or cold to help him/her children find a mitten. Another way to play- hide many mittens in the room and you wear the kitten puppet, have children look for mittens and bring them to you.

Songs, Poems, & Fingerplays

(Try this poem with the kids, have 10 mittens cut from construction paper to use with it, toss mittens on the floor as you recite the poem.)

1 mitten
2 mittens
3 mittens 4
How many mittens are on the floor?
5 mittens
6 mittens
7 mittens 8
Now we need to lay them straight
9 mittens
10 mittens
Oh lets see
Just how many there will be.

(Count them with the children.  See if they can figure out how many "pairs" of mittens that is.)

Literacy: Copy the poem on chart paper, point to the words as you read the poem with the children. Add interest to the activity by wearing a funny mitten on your hand or using a pointer with a mitten on the end of it!

Activities

 Mitten Story Extenders

Math & Number Concepts

Mitten Match/Sort: Create or purchase mittens to make a color mitten matching game or a sorting game. To add more challenge use mittens with different patterns on them to help children build their visual discrimination skills. 

Mitten Clothes Line:  Tie a string across two chairs, and provide clothes pins and mittens you have made from construction paper, encourage the children to clip then on to the clothes line in different patterns, or label the mittens with numbers or the alphabet and see if the children can hang them in the correct order.  

Art

Decorate a mitten! Provide children with a large cut out of a mitten from a strong paper or card stock.  Have a variety of art materials for them to use such as 9 ct. Washable Glitter Glue, sequins, rickrack, pom-poms, and more.  Let the children glue on whatever they would like or decorate however they wish to make their very own one of a kind mitten.  Hang the finished mittens on a classroom mitten tree!

Literacy: Have the children dictate a story to you about their mitten. Give them a story starter such as, "One day I was playing outside and my mitten..."

Craft Activity
Felt Mittens: Children can make this little decoration as a gift or just for fun!  Cut four identical mitten shapes from Felt Sheets - One Pound by Chenille Kraft .  Place two mitten shapes together, sandwich a one end of a 6-inch or longer piece of jute/craft string into the two mittens and glue together.  Do the same with the second set of mittens gluing them to the other end of the jute.  Then let the children embellish them with buttons, fabric scraps, glitter glue, or whatever you have on hand.  They look really cute hanging on a Christmas tree.

Dramatic Play

Put a variety of felt mittens on the flannel board for the children to use to retell stories.

Put out extra winter clothing in the housekeeping or dramatic play area for children to use in their play.  

Music & Movement

The Freeze- Play the song the Freeze, from the recording Kids in Motion by Greg & Steve. Make the dancing even more fun by giving the children  Dazzler Ribbons to dance with!

Mitten Bean Bags:  Make beanbags out of old mittens that don’t have a match, you can use them for a variety of beanbag games.

Science & Discovery

Fill your discovery table with snow and set out a variety of mittens for the children to wear as they play in the snow.  Talk about which mittens are warmer, waterproof, etc.  Why?

Literacy: Have children record their results on a classroom chart.

Fill the discovery table with all kinds of different pieces of yarn for the children to explore.

"Feely" Mitten Match: Collect a variety of PAIRS of mittens.  Place one of each pair under a dark cloth and the others on top of the cloth.  Have the children reach under the cloth and FEEL the mittens and try to find the match.

Add a dress up bear to your calendar area; let the children take turns dressing him for the weather.

Blocks & Building

Tape mitten cut outs with different decorations on each pair onto several square blocks. Leave them set up in the block area and encourage the children to match up the mitten pairs.

Puzzles, Games & Manipulatives

Mitten Lacing Cards: Make your own mitten lacing cards!  Cut a mitten shape from tag-board or some or cardstock, decorate, laminate, and punch holes around the outside of the mitten shape for a cute lacing card.

Computers

Visit the Jan Brett website for all kinds of fun activities to do with her classic book The Mitten.

Cooking

Mitten Sandwiches: Make sandwiches and cut them with Mitten Cookie Cutters  for a fun mitten shaped snack.

Bulletin Boards

Other Resources