A Giant Mitten...for The Mitten Book!

It seems each year around this time I pull out the book "The Mitten" by Jan Brett.  It gives us a continued chance to talk about winter weather gear (mittens, hats, coats etc) and since it is so cold around here in January it gives us an excuse to enjoy an interactive book surrounding the snow!

In this photo you can't see the large bear and fox that take up most of the room in the mitten :) 
All the other stuffed animals are very small.

Previously, we've told the story of the Mitten by using a large white pillowcase and stuffed animals.  When I pulled it out again this year to bring it to school, I decided to try to create a more "mitten-like" case for the animals to sit in.  


I left the top very square to accomodate the larger stuffed animals and made the "thumb-space" small since I didn't want to have to fish out small stuffed animals from that area :)

So, I cut the pillowcase into a semi-mitten-like shape and sewed up the sides.  I added some Velcro at the bottom to hold it closed while transporting the "mitten"  and all the animals and attached some leftover material as a rudimentary handle to the mitten.  The entire project took me less than 20 minutes (and my sewing skills are extremelly limited). 

The velcro strips I sewed in place at the opening.

Now, a note about our stuffed animals.  Even after searching for a "mole" and a "badger" for our story-telling, I have yet to find either of these animals as a stuffed animal.  (Has anyone ever seen a mole or a badger stuffed animal?)

 

 

So, we use a raccoon for the badger and a hamster for a mole!  The real fun of the story is how many animals wedge themselves into a tiny mitten so I'm not too worried about the authenticity of all the stuffed animals. :)

 

Since I wanted to keep as much room as possible for the animals (the stuffed fox and bear I have take up most of the room in the mitten) the shape is a bit odd!  But, I do think it will give the kids a bit more of an idea that this is supposed to be a mitten...not a pillowcase! 

Now, I'm just excited to try out our new "mitten" for The Mitten at school this week!  
 

Mud, Mud, Mud!

We have been enjoying another great story this week: Stuck in the Mud, by Jane Clarke.  This is a fun tale of a chick that gets stuck in the mud.  Each animal comes to help push and pull the chick, but finds themselves stuck in the mud as well.  At the end, the chick announces that he hadn't been stuck in the mud at all, but was enjoying playing in the mud with his friends!

Well, after we read the book, we enjoyed the most messy experience in our sensory table!  I added some inexpensive potting soil to the table.  We then helped the children pour small cups of water into the "dirt" to make mud!

Well, we added our pretend animals and had a great time exploring what happens to the dirt when mixed with water.  We also experimented a bit with having the animals get "stuck" in the mud.  (I think after a few days with the experience of the book and the "mud", the children will do a bit more experimenting with the idea of having the animals get stuck in the mud.  Today, they simply watched me demonstrate!)

I can't wait to explore this again tomorrow!  We'll add some additional play materials, including some small people and some natural objects to the table!  We figure after a few days of "mud" play those poor animals may need to go through a little animal bath!  I'm sure we'll have some children just as eager to help wash the animals as they are about helping the animals get dirty!

****This has been linked to Nurture Store’s Play Academy****


****This has also been linked to...

Paint-Dancing!

Today we began listening and reading the story "Abiyoyo."   After we listened to the story, we decided to 'paint-dance'!  Of course, this would be a version of the dancing that Abiyoyo does in the story; we just added paint to the mix!

We each positioned ourselves with two paintbrushes each, turned on some music, and had those paintbrushes "dancing" across the large paper taped to the table!  Some of us danced fast.  Some of us danced slowly!  Some of us danced with the paint side by side...but MOST of us danced with the paint swirled together!

Some of the children watched carefully as we used the brushes to swirl the paint in circles and make "feather" painting with the brush almost dry.  The children all stayed interested in this group painting project for more than 20 minutes! 

We enjoyed this project so much, that it may take several days for the finished group project to dry!   I think we may try this again sometime with different colors!  The children really enjoyed the open-ended aspect of this project.  And, of course, who doesn't like painting with TWO paintbrushes?!

Oh, yes, and some of us threatened to dance those two paintbrushes right on our teacher's head!   

The Mitten...sensory table experience!

Today we started reading the book The Mitten by Jan Brett.  If you want to see an awesome video clip of the story retold with stuffed animals go to visit Strong Start.  Maureen does an awesome job of storytelling!   We also used stuffed animals and a white pillowcase to tell the story for the children.  Although, I'm not sure my storytelling is quite as good!

After we told the story, we talked about how difficult it was for the little boy in the story to see his mitten in the snow since the mitten was white and the snow was white!  We went to our sensory table to experience this first hand!  Prior to this I had hidden white foam and felt mitten shapes in the sensory table with cotton balls on top.

We used spoons, our hands and tongs to move the cotton balls and find all the white mittens.  We had both big and small mittens, but all were white!  This was great fine motor work with the tongs, math concepts with both big and small mittens and tied in nicely and demonstrated to the children why white mittens were so difficult to see in the white snow!

Of course, this will be available to the kids all week to explore during center time.  We will leave the mittens, bowls, cups, tongs and spoons in the sensory table so the children can recreate this again and again if they would like!

Keeping warm...and exploring Quilts!

During the past week, we read "Cassie's Word Quilt" by Faith Ringgold.  Since we are always working on building language and understanding, I generally try to pull out the one most significant tangible item from the book to focus on during the week with the children.  Since we see the quilt in many pictures in the book and it ties the story together, we focused on the quilt.  And, although, there is much more to this story than just a quilt, exploring the quilt gives us a focal point for understanding the story.

Our paper "quilt" all put together!

We have several small lap quilts in our dramatic play area that we used while reading this book to emphasize that a quilt is a blanket.  Even most of the children from the larger classroom who came to visit knew the WORD quilt, but weren't quite sure what a quilt actually was.   So, we decided to make our version of a quilt at the end of the week...with paper squares.

Apparently you can never use too much paint or glitter!

Friday we talked about how our simple lap quilts in the dramatic play area are made up of many squares all hooked together with yarn.  We followed a few of the squares with our fingers.  We then went to the table and used various colors of paint and beads and sequins to decorate many squares of paper.   While we were working, I attached a few of the squares together with yarn so the children could see that eventually they would all be attached.

One child would ONLY paint squares with a TON of orange paint...nothing else!

Needless to say, we had several children that insisted on painting and glittering and gluing until their square was so wet and heavy that it took nearly two days to dry!!  The kids haven't actually seen the entire project connected together because of the drying time.  It will be interesting to see tomorrow what they think of all the squares hooked together with the yarn!

Even the teachers joined in the fun!

During this activity we even had one child who has never willingly used glue before work to attach sequins and beads and buttons to TWO squares (with just a bit of help)!  We were very excited about this! 

First time willingly using glue!  Yes, some of the buttons fell off, but that's OK!

 I figured for now, focusing on the squares hooked together, was enough.  At some point, though, we may introduce how these can be cut in two to form triangles and more patterns can be made!  We'll leave that for another day, though!  

Brrr....Winter Clothing Book and Game

One of my favorite super simple winter books for my classroom is "Under My Hood I Have a Hat" by Karla Kuskin.  This is a very simple predicable book that goes through several winter weather clothing item a child will need to put on before going outside. 

 We created a bit of a game of naming each winter weather item we need to put on.  Now, I'm not sure how it happened, but this little song (below) literally just jumped into my head the other week when I was planning.  I'm sure I must have heard it somewhere.  If I could remember where, I would certainly credit that person with this.  So, if you posted this song on your blog or have seen it in a book, please let me know, so I can link back to it.  We sing this song while holding on to the handles of our parachute and going around in a circle.  Each time we sing about a new winter weather clothing we put that item in the middle of the parachute and go around while singing.

(sung to the tune of Here we go round the Mulberry bush)

"What do we wear in winter time, in winter time, in winter time?
What do we wear in winter time...when it's cold outside?

We wear a hat on our head, on our head, on our head.
We wear a hat on our head, when it's cold outside.

We wear a scarf around our neck, around our neck, around our neck.
We wear a scarf around our neck, when it's cold outside.

We wear snowpants on our legs, on our legs, on our legs.
We wear snowpants on our legs, when it's cold outside.

We wear boots on our feet, on our feet, on our feet.
We wear boots on our feet, when it's cold outside."

Boxed In...A Bear Cave!

After our wonderful abstract art bears we made this week, we have worked dillegently on creating a "bear cave" in our room.  We decided our small stuffed bear may need a bear cave just like the bear family in the book we are reading:  Bear's First Winter. 

So, off we went, box in hand and with LOTS of black paint!  For the last two days we have spent time painting each side of the box.  The children made sure pretty much EVERY single space was painted black!  The bumpy cardboard surface offered a great bumpy tactile experience as well as a chance to make some wonderful bump, bump sounds as the brush went over the cardboard bumps!

Today, after painting, we began gluing some cotton balls to the side of the box. Because, of course, it's winter...we needed some "snow" on our cave!

I can't wait to use our bear cave tomorrow to do Going on a Bear Hunt!  I have a feeling, we might just find our stuffed bear in the cave!

Yikes! It's a Bear!

This week we have been reading and listening to the story "Bear's first Winter" on CD (I think this was first published as Chaucer's First Winter).  The children have thoroughly enjoyed the fact that there are such wonderful sound effects on this version of the book on tape!  Seriously, though, you can hear the bear slide across the ice and fall down!  If you don't have this book on CD, I highly recommend looking for it through Scholastic as it is very cute!  The book on CD uses various sound effects to represent the snow falling, the ice and the animal's voices are just too cute!

After we listened to this story today, we decided to make some simple bears.  The children tore or cut brown paper into small pieces. 

This little guy would make one large tear down the piece of paper
then clap and smile at the great work he'd done!

Then they were able to paint a paper plate with glue and stick the brown paper all over the plate.  When we were done covering our paper plate with brown paper scraps, we glued button eyes on our bears!

We had to use the GREAT BIG (and old) paintbrushes
since glue really ruins the brushes!

When we were finished, we had something that looked similar to a bear!  We know, we know....use your imagination!  They're missing some ears, a nose and a mouth!  But we had fun creating them!

These would be considered "abstract art bears"!

On another note...we made it outside today for about 35 minutes!  Yippee!  The kids had a blast in the snow!

OK- really, he was excited to be in the snow a minute before!

Watch Out! It's a Jungle Out There!

I heard from around the web (thanks Teach Preschool!) that Kohl's had stuffed animals to go along with several of the Eric Carle books!  I was very excited to find out if this was true in my area!  I'm already lucky enough to own a few stuffed animals that belong to specific books I read often in my classroom.

"Where are you little green dragon?"

I use these stuffed animals to either introduce the book, engage the children in the book or with a simple activity after we read the book.   

"The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash"

Several of these stuffed animals have not been able to see the light of day in a few years since the books they belong with are a bit too difficult for the children in my classroom. 

"Elmer Plays Hide-and-Seek"

I'm usually able to find SOME use for them though!  For instance, Elmer has been used to introduce the story "Elmer Plays Hide-and-Seek.  He has also been used to sing the song Willaby, Wallaby Woo....an elephant sat on...you!" 

"The Rainbow Fish"

The children love being able to pass around one of the stuffed animals either before or after we read a story.  This is also one of the ways we can work on passing an object to a friend, turn taking and engaging with others (making eye contact and/or using words).

Horton

These stuffed animals also join us in the classroom often when we introduce letters and letter sounds.  I have several specific stuffed animals that help introduce Nursery Rhymes as well.

"Giggle, Giggle, Quack"

There are so many ways we can use these stuffed animals; as transitional items, to introduce a book or Nursery Rhyme, to work on making animal sounds, to engage the children in a song or to introduce letters and letter sounds.   

The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Grouchy Ladybug (as well as 2 other Eric Carle books)

Oh, YIPEEE, now we can add these stuffed animals that go along with the Eric Carle books!  I can't wait to use them in the classroom!