Deuteronomy 16:15

Deuteronomy 16:15
For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.



Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Mitten

In January one of our theme weeks focused on "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. I don't get the chance to post on here as often as I would like, but I got some cute pictures from that week, and wanted to share what we did. This little blog has become almost like an online scrapbook for me, and I really enjoy going back, and remembering all the different things we do together. To find where we read this book online, and links to all the activities and printables we did, check out my Mitten Board on Pinterest. If you haven't signed up for Pinterest yet, be sure it check it out! I am TOTALLY in love with it, and use it as a great organizational tool to save all the fun ideas I find online to do with the kiddos.

We read "The Mitten" online, and both kids thought that was really neat. Following the Before Five In A Row model, we read the book every day, and sometimes more than once a day. I was actually surprised that the kids wanted to hear it that many times! I was impressed how much they both got out of the book by repeated readings, and how each time we read it, they found something new in the illustrations. The fact that they got to take turns pushing the button on my keyboard to change the page, may have also been a selling point. Oh the simple things in life! ;)


We kicked off our week by making mitten sun catchers to hang in the window. We cut up pieces of tissue paper.


Then we sprinkled the tissue paper into the mitten outline I had cut out. Nathan was able to cut with my help, and got really into sprinkling the paper.


Once they were filled with tissue paper I laminated the mittens and cut them out. They turned out really pretty and the kids were proud!


We talked about left and right, and practiced finding which was which. I put different tattoos on each kids hands to help them remember which left and right.


We practiced sorting our mittens into left and right piles.


We did many of "The Mitten" printables from Homeschool Creations on my iPad. We did math and counting skills, letter recognition, alphabetical order, and pre-reading skills.


Here is a close up of one of the worksheets on the iPad that Naomi did. Don't know how to save a PDF on your iPad and draw on/edit it? Check out this link! This has been a lifesaver when it comes to our ink costs. Plus, Naomi LOVES using the iPad, so it's been a fun way for her to approach some of these pages in a different way.


Here Naomi was sorting the animals from the story, and learning the names of the ones she wasn't familiar with.


Using the animal cards I had printed off from Homeschool Creations, Naomi put the animals in the mitten as I read the story. She did this activity on her own many times after I finished reading as well. She had fun and it was a great way to practice sequencing.


We talked about real and make-believe, and discussed whether all of those animals could actually fit in a mitten. Then we counted how many of the kids little stuffies we really could fit in a one of my (super cool, Canadian!) mittens.


Nathan LOVED doing this, and we practiced counting as he stuffed the animals in.


We also discussed how some objects could stretch, and how others couldn't, since the mitten in the story had to stretch out a bunch to accommodate all the animals. We made a list of things that stretched and ones that did not. Naomi had a blast running around the house testing to see if she could stretch things. We determined this piece of cardboard did NOT stretch, despite her best efforts!


She found that an elastic was one of the best stretchy items. We measured it before she stretched it, and after. If you look closely you will see the elastic on the ruler. Naomi was impressed with the results!


I printed off realistic pictures of the animals in the story from 1+1+1=1 (remember, go to my Pinterest link at the top of this post for ALL links). It was neat for Naomi to see actual pictures of the animals, and requested to see more online. I was happy to oblige! Here she was labeling all the animals.


We put the other animal cards I had in order, and then practiced using ordinal numbers (first, second, ect.). Naomi got really good at it!


Here Naomi was sorting objects that started with the letter M. I caught her saying mole. :)


Meanwhile, I would tell Nathan the name of an animal, and he would find it. We also practiced saying the animal sounds.


Naomi cut, then sorted left and right mittens, and glued them down.


Naomi found some stick on nails, and I put them on her. This picture was too cute not to share!


Here she sorted words from the story by syllables (1 or 2).


Naomi painted the cover for our lapbook, and was decorating her mitten for the book.


A glimpse of her work board. She is always so proud of what she had done, and drags Jim down to see her new work from the day the second he gets home. I have to say, displaying the work of one child is much easier than doing a whole class like I did back in my teaching days!!


The cover of our mitten lapbook. I got all the printables for our lapbook from Homeschool Share (again, see my Pinterest board).


The inside of our lapbook. On the outside flaps is clues about each animal. When you lift the flap, there is a picture of the animal. Where it says "My Mitten" is a little pocket. In the pocket we put in our animal sequence cards, animal labels, and the animal cards that went with the ordinal numbers. Naomi wanted to decorate the mitten on the pocket with the animal stickers I had.


On the back of our lapbook I put Naomi's story summary, and favorite part of the book. She dictated to me, and I wrote it down. I was AMAZED at how detailed her summary was! She even told me the correct order all 8 animals got in the mitten.

We had a great week and all really enjoyed this mini unit!

Karla

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