Mittens

"Thumbs in the thumb-place,
Fingers all together!"
This is the song
We sing in mitten weather.
When it is cold,
It doesn't matter whether
Mittens are wool,
Or made of finest leather.
This is the song
We sing in mitten weather:
"Thumbs in the thumb-place,
Fingers all together!"

Mittens

I have three pairs of mittens;
Yellow, red, and blue.
If I ever lose a pair,
I will still have two.
But it never works that way,
That's not the way it's done.
I never seem to lose the pair
All I lose is one!
And at the end of winter,
I have three mittens there:
One blue, one red, one yellow,
But not a single pair!

I wiggle my left hand,
I wiggle my right,
Inside of my mittens,
So warm and so tight.

I wiggle my pinkie.
I wiggle my thumb,
So when I make snowballs,
My hands don't get numb.

I know a mouse that jumped in a mitten,
I don't know why he jumped in the mitten,
Perhaps it will burst.


Continue on adding all the characters in the story.

Is there anything nicer
Than red woolly mittens,
As fluffy and soft
As a blanket of kittens?

Red mittens to keep
My hands warm as toast,
On cold winter days
When I skate or coast.

Mittens are warm,
Mittens are grand,
Mittens are like Shoes for my hands.

I'm sliding on the driveway,
I'm falling off my sled,
I'm rolling down the hillside,
I'm standing on my head.

When playing in a snowbank
It's hard to have control.
I wonder how my mittens
Got such a large hole.

The mitten in the snow
The mitten in the snow
Help us please so we won't freeze
The mitten in the snow.

A ________ squeezes in.
A ________ squeezes in.
Help us please so we won't freeze.
The mitten in the snow.

The Mitten Tree
by Candace Christiansen

Notice the details: the plates over the fireplace, Nicki and Baba's clothing, Nicki's boots, the thatched roof with the crossed sticks to hold it in place, the birds' nest near the chimney. Why did Brett put the eye-catching embroidery in each frame? Is it merely decorative or does it pull your eye to something important. Look at the background of each frame. Isn't that birch bark? Why?

Look at the language, especially the verbs, that Brett uses in her story. The animals swoop, lumber, trot, snuffle, bump and jostle. Use the thesaurus for other words that mean the same thing. Change the words. Do you like your choices better?

Stay with the language a bit. Nicki calls his grandmother, Baba, the Ukrainian word for grandmother. What would he call her if the story was set in Spain, Zambia, Italy, Holland and Germany? What do you call yours?

The theme of the book is the straw that broke the camel's back. What's the origin of that expression?

Notice the parts of the book which are very realistic. She has shown or told about the animals who live in that area, their specific natural habitat, their appearance and their defense mechanisms.

   After reading this story, brainstorm rhyming pairs.  Write their responses on a chart.  Then the children trace and cut out a pair of mittens from construction paper. Each child draws a pair of rhyming words on their mittens, one word per mitten.  Make these mittens into a class book.  Glue one mitten from each pair into the book.  The children can practice matching the remaining mittens.   Put a piece of Velcro on the back of the mitten and in the book, so the mittens stay put while the book is not being read!

Create a Predictable Chart:
My mittens are __________. 
(insert color words.)

Mitten Glyph

Red Mitten: I like winter best

Blue Mitten: I like Spring Best

Yellow Mitten: I like summer best

Green Mitten: I like fall best

Star Design: I am 5 years old

Polka Dots: I am 6 years old

Cotton on the cuff: I liked the book
The Mitten

No cotton: I did not like the book
The Mitten

Mitten Estimation

Identify the point at which the tale and the mitten have stretched beyond credulity. Find out the sizes of each of these animals and get into some math activities by estimating how big the mitten would have to have grown.

Guess and see how many mittens away the office, bathroom, etc. are from your room.

Have students draw winter hats, ear muffs, gloves, and socks (with toed spaces showing).

Ask them to color the clothing articles and cut them out. Display row of hats and have students count them by 1's.

Display row of ear muffs, count them by 2's.

Count gloves by 5's, and count toed socks by 10's.

This activity not only combines artistic and mathematical thinking but it also can make a wonderful wall display.

Mitten
Measurement Book

Draw a mitten on each page (or have children trace their mitten on each page.)  Write the following sentences on pages:

My mitten is _______ cubes long.

A ____________ is shorter than my mitten.

A ___________ is longer than my mitten.

My favorite color mitten is ______________.  

Mitten Games

Makes pairs of mittens for games.  Label each mitten pair with the following:

*  Upper and lower case letters
*  Number sentences and answers
*  Matching sight words
*  Matching letters
*  Matching numerals and numbers

Mitten Matching

The white mittens Baba made for Nicki are hard to spot if lost in the snow.  Find an old wallpaper book that is mostly made up of white pages with different textures and occasionally a thin stripe of a different color that is not really obvious unless you are looking.

Cut out fronts and backs - enough to make a pair of mittens about 4 in high - in 7 designs (but all white with different textures} Glue them together like mittens.  Write a different day of the week on the back side of each pair. (You have to write "Monday" and "Monday" on each one of the pair).
Have the children match the front sides by pattern, or the back sides by words.

The center is for visual discrimination and detail but it will also help to learn/recognize the spelling for each day of the week and will be an easy check for correct pairing and self correcting.

Lace up Mitten cards- Make lacing cards, using a mitten pattern, hole punch, and yarn.

Match up Mittens- Cut/color various patterns on mittens, have children match the same patterns.

Sequencing mittens- Cut mittens from various colors and make various sizes. Have children create patterns (ab, ab, a,b,a,b) with the mittens.

Winter Hats

Materials: Construction paper, paste, crayons, paint, brushes, cotton balls

Preparation: Draw a stocking cap shape for each child on a piece of construction paper. A half circle with a cuff across the bottom and a tassel at the top is simple to do. Cut out cap shapes.

Have the children decorate their cap shapes with crayons or paint or by pasting on scraps of colored paper. Try sponge painting, too.
Let them each paste a cotton ball on the tassel area.

While the children are working, talk about the changing weather and how hats help keep heads and ears warm. The children may make mittens to match caps. Together they make great bulletin board display.

Mitten Drama

Sew a REALLY large mitten out of felt and decorate. Make your own masks of the animals. Then write your play and present it to the other Kindergarten classes.