Did you know Jan Brett has a website with tons of activities for her books? It's so awesome. Just type the name of a book into the search bar, and you'll get tons of links to ideas, crafts, games, and more.
Somewhere along the line in 2012, I must have found a copy of The Mitten for sale and picked it up for a future Christmas gift. I have a file box on the kitchen counter for storing loose papers and the like, and when I opened it up early in December (for the first time in months), I discovered the book in Levi's folder. (This is what happens when you try to get organized, but it only lasts a week or two.)
Last week, the suggested book of the week in our (free, online) preschool curriculum was Jan Brett's The Hat. Since I owned The Mitten but not The Hat, I figured we'd just use what we had. The curriculum website directed me to Brett's own website, however, and I was delighted to find fun activities to enhance our reading.
So, I printed off two mitten outlines and a page of animals. I let the boys color one mitten each [I expressly forbade Levi from writing letters and numbers, hoping he'd be content just to color for once, and so he took the opportunity to draw shapes.], and then I colored the animals myself while they ate lunch. (Mama gets to use the crayons occasionally, too, right?) I cut everything out, searched for a while for a stapler, gave up, packing-taped the edges of the mittens together, and settled everyone on the couch for a dramatic reading. Each boy got four paper animals, I held the mitten, and together we worked to act out the story.
I had no idea it would be so fun. When the bear sneezed the animals out of the mitten, I shook them all out of the our paper mitten, and Owen nearly laughed himself right off the couch. We've re-enacted it a dozen times since, and I've even caught Owen playing with the paper animals by himself -- some sort of boy version of paper dolls, perhaps?
Last week, the suggested book of the week in our (free, online) preschool curriculum was Jan Brett's The Hat. Since I owned The Mitten but not The Hat, I figured we'd just use what we had. The curriculum website directed me to Brett's own website, however, and I was delighted to find fun activities to enhance our reading.
So, I printed off two mitten outlines and a page of animals. I let the boys color one mitten each [I expressly forbade Levi from writing letters and numbers, hoping he'd be content just to color for once, and so he took the opportunity to draw shapes.], and then I colored the animals myself while they ate lunch. (Mama gets to use the crayons occasionally, too, right?) I cut everything out, searched for a while for a stapler, gave up, packing-taped the edges of the mittens together, and settled everyone on the couch for a dramatic reading. Each boy got four paper animals, I held the mitten, and together we worked to act out the story.
I should've taken a close-up picture of the mitten and the animals. Sorry about that. Just click the link in the paragraph above to see what they look like.
Levi participated as well, but Isaac managed to snap some pictures when I was just reading it again with Owen.
Oh I love this!!! You are a great mom!
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