One of my favorite stories to read during the winter months is The Mitten,
by Jan Brett. It is perfect for teaching sequencing, story features including title, author, setting, characters, and so much more! The kids love to try to recreate the story, and I love that the kids are learning while having fun! During our story unit, we complete many literacy and math activities. I usually stretch this unit over a few days. Here are some of the activities that we complete.
After reading the story to the class, we complete this story features chart. We add the title, author, setting, and characters to our chart. I use a pocket chart, so that it is interactive and the kids can participate. You can also create a poster with the story features.
One of our favorite Mitten activities is sequencing the story. I created this interactive mitten that allows the students to place the characters in order, while placing them in the mitten.
I also created this in a black and white version so that the kids could color it, and then take it home to sequence the story for their parents.
I also made this additional sequencing activity to supplement the book. Students read the emergent reader (which is very predictable). After reading the emergent reader, students sequence the emergent reader (which mimics the book) on this sequencing mat. We then place our emergent reader in our book boxes for an additional familiar read.
Young students love to sing! I wrote this song that goes along with the book, The Mitten. It is sang to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot. It is also perfect for a shared reading lesson.
I love to incorporate writing into our story units also. I designed non-fiction slides for all of the animals in the story. We use these slides, along with other non-fiction materials, to research each of the animals. We then write a non-fiction piece about the animal. The students love to share these with the class, and then put them on display.
I add this little art activity into my lesson plans. Students choose an animal from the story to place in their mitten. They illustrate their animal on the outside.
I try to teach across the curriculum, and include math in our story units. After reading The Mitten, we create a class graph of our favorite animal from the story. We then transfer our data onto this bar graph. It is interesting to see what animal is the class favorite, because many of the animals from the story are not common animals. (badger, hedgehog etc.)
My kiddos love add & color in any form. I created this mitten version to keep them engaged.
I also have several other mitten themed activities that we complete throughout our story study. We practice color words, cvc words, story features, and more!
If you like these Mitten activities, you are welcome to use them in your own classroom.
You can get my Mitten unit in my teacherspayteachers store.
