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Are you looking for fun winter activities to use in your kindergarten classroom this year? Your students will love a math and literacy unit focused on the picture book “The Mitten” by Jan Brett. In this post, I’m going to share a variety of The Mitten activities for kindergarten that you can use for a fun and engaging unit study this winter.
A unit focused on “The Mitten” should start with reading the book! If you aren’t familiar with this picture book, it’s a beautifully illustrated story about forest animals seeking refuge from the winter weather in a misplaced mitten.
As you read (and re-read) this story together as a class, you can fill in the different story elements for students to reference during the next activity: A story elements printable book!
The creation of this book takes place over several days. First, your students will review the characters and setting of the story.
Then they will practice sequencing as they sort the order that the animals went into the mitten. They can also summarize the sequence of events as they write about the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
Students can also practice cause and effect by matching different story events to what caused them to take place. Finally, they can identify and write about their favorite part of the story. They will be so excited to take these books home to share with their families!
After reading about different animals that went into the mitten, your students will be ready to write their own version of the story! Students can use a sentence frame to write about an animal that crawled into the mitten and why. They can illustrate their writing and attach a mitten to create an interactive writing craftivity!
This is another fun writing activity inspired by “The Mitten” that allows students to practice writing their opinion. They can choose their favorite animal from the story and explain why it is their favorite.
Did you know that “The Mitten” picture book is based on a Ukrainian folktale? As with other folktales, there are different versions of this story. You can choose one of these variations with your students, like “The Mitten” by Alvin Tresselt. Your students can make text-to-text connections as they complete a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two versions of this folktale.
Your class can also practice making text-to-self connections with a writing activity. They can write about a time when they lost something and found it, just like the child lost his mitten in the story.
Do your students prefer gloves or mittens? Use an anchor chart to graph the results!
Then students can practice graphing and interpreting data with this printable activity.
Your students will have fun placing the mitten in different places relative to the animals from the story. They can read the sentence on each page and then use the mitten on a string to correctly model the positional word in the sentence.
After learning and modeling positional words, students can complete sentences using positional words in another printable reader.
This activity comes with two options to choose from: Students can write the correct word on a blank or color the correct word from two choices.
As students grow more comfortable with addition, it’s important for them to practice vertical equations. This lift-the-flap is an engaging way for students to solve addition problems. They will glue the bottom of each mitten to the page as they match each equation to the correct sum.
Another engaging way to practice addition is with a true or false sort. Students will look at the equation on each mitten and decide if the number sentence is true or false, then attach it to the correct spot on the worksheet.
Students can continue to practice identifying true and false addition equations with a flip book!
They can cut, sort, and glue the mitten cards under the correct flap.
If your students are ready to practice subtraction, there are several interactive ways to add some winter fun to your instruction!
Students can model subtraction with a mitten mat! As you talk about how many animals are in the mitten, students will model this with the cards. Then they can use their mats to determine how many animals are still in the snow.
Your students can also practice subtraction on a number line with this practice mat and worksheet!
After practicing subtraction in different ways, your class will be ready to practice solving subtraction equations. Each problem on the worksheet includes mittens that students can cross off to help them solve each equation.
You can bring some extra fine motor practice to subtraction practice with this mitten lacing activity!
After creating their own mitten with paper and yarn, students will use it to model a variety of subtraction equations using animal cards. This is always a hit with students!
Are you interested in planning your own kindergarten unit for “The Mitten” this winter? All of the activities above (and more!) can be found in one easy download to save you time and money! Inside this resource, you’ll also find a printable unit-at-a-glance PDF that outlines how you can plan the activities to create a cohesive five-day thematic unit.
If you’d like to take a closer look at The Mitten activities for kindergarten, you can find this resource in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or on TPT.
Be sure to save this post if you’d like to come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these kindergarten activity ideas when you’re planning your next winter kindergarten unit.
These alphabet books will have students dive deep into learning about each letter of the alphabet while eager to see what activity they get to complete next!
