Mittens!

Our current discovery unit is on mittens. We recently read "The Mitten Tree", by Candice Christiansen. This story is about kindness and generosity. An elderly woman, Sarah, watches children as they play and wait for their school bus to arrive. Sarah notices that one small boy is not playing with the cold snow because he did not have any mittens. She kindly knitts a pair for him, and anonymously places them on the blue spruce tree next to the bus stop. Soon this becomes a game and the children eagerly check the mysterious mitten tree each morning to see if there are any new pairs of mittens?

After reading our story we talked quite a bit about mittens. Why would you need to wear them? What do they look like? How are they different from gloves? We discussed that mittens come in pairs that match. We then had an opportunity to decorate and cut out our very own pair of mittens.

After our mittens were complete, 6B all gathered on the rug and received one mitten each. We faced away from one another and closed our eyes as each friend took a turn to open their eyes and describe the mitten that they were given (a great experience for auditory learners). As we listened to the descriptions, the person who created that mitten had to raise their hand the moment they knew that it was theirs. We each did a wonderful job, and properly identified our own mittens! Once each pair was matched, they went up on our 6B mitten tree.

As an extension to this lesson we all brought in a real pair of mittens (or gloves) from home. This provided an opportunity for a tactile learning experience. 6B students needed to explore and discuss their mittens with a friend using describing words that explained how the mittens looked and felt.

After we compiled a class list of describing words (patterned, colorful, fuzzy, soft etc.) we worked on a portfolio page for the month of December. We had to properly write two describing words and accurately illustrate a picture of our mittens.

Bravo friends!