THE MITTEN project

We managed to do another of my planned January activities this weekend. First I read Jan Brett's The Mitten to the boys. They had each heard it before, but I read it again since it relates to our project. I'm sure most of you have read it before, but if not I've included a photo below.



For our activity, I printed out some large mitten patterns that I found on Preschool Express. If you go to their site, click on the "Pattern Station" link and you'll find the mitten pattern under the "winter" section. I printed them on cardstock so they would be sturdier for our project.

Then I used a square punch from my scrapbooking tool stash and punched out squares from scraps of scrapbooking paper.



Then I had the boys glue the squares onto their mittens to make a "patchwork" design. After they had finished this part, I placed two mittens together and punched holes around the outside. Then they laced the mittens together using ribbon. You could also use yarn, but I didn't have any.





My 7 1/2 year old could independently lace his mitten once I got him started. I helped my 3 1/2 year old a little more, but he could also do it with some help.




Here are their finished mittens: my little guy's on the left and big guy's on the right. I always find it so interesting how they approach the same project. My little boy only wanted to use one type of paper and wanted the whole mitten covered with very precisely laid out squares and my older son was more haphazard in his approach. The result? Two unique mittens which truly represent my two very unique boys.

The last thing I did was print out some pictures of the animals from the story on white cardstock. I found these on the Jan Brett website.........a treasure trove of information and resources.




My oldest boy colored his according to the colors each animal truly is. He has used these little pieces to act out the entire story several times. My little boy just loves putting his mitten on his hand and walking around showing everyone. I love doing activities with them that we can tie in to a book we love.