What Fits in My Mitten Activity and “The Mitten” Book Review

by Haley Bono

The Mitten by Jan Brett was one of my favorites as a child, and has been added to my own children's book collection. The book is actually based off of a well known folk tale from Ukraine as old as the 19th century. There are different variations of this story, but the version by Jan Brett is the one most well known.

The story is about a young boy who loses his mitten. One by one different animals find the mitten, and all snuggle inside together to stay warm, in the cold winter weather. The pictures are just as darling as the story, with so much for kids to look at and discover. There are also a lot of fun words used to describe the different animals, such as “glinty talons” or “shiny teeth” making it a great book to help build children’s vocabulary.

This is a very popular book, and is probably one you can find at your local bookstore. However if you can’t find it there you can check out your local library or you can click here. to buy the book from Amazon.

As I mentioned earlier, there are many different versions of this story. I found a very cute animated version of this Ukrainian folk tale on YouTube. Click here. for the link. It might be fun to read one version, and then watch the other. You can ask your kiddos some questions about each one. How do the two compare? What were some similarities, and what were some differences?

Help your kids create their own story. What would fit in your children’s mittens? You could go with any animals, or try to stick with a theme (such as farm animals, forest animals, only birds, only fish, or maybe even desert animals).

Supplies:

Free Template (link at the end of this post), something to color with, string (8-10 inches in length), scissors, glue stick, pen/pencil, hole punch.

Directions:

1. Draw four different animals where designated on the first template page. Encourage the children to start with a small animal and slowly get bigger, just like in the book.
2. Color the pictures and the template that says “front”. Don’t color where it says “glue” as sometimes that can affect how well the glue works.
3. Cut out the four pictures, the front of the mittens, and the back of the mittens.
4. Using a glue stick, place glue where designated on the part of the mittens that said “back”. Stick the front of the mittens over the top of the back of the mittens.
5. Using a hole punch, punch a hole on the front of the mittens on the small circle on the template. Tip: To make the holes strong use a piece of clear time over the circle, and then hole punch the paper. This will help keep the string from tearing through the paper.
6. Tie a string on one mitten, and then tie the other end of the string to the other mitten.
7. Using the mittens, and the four pictures, encourage your children to tell their very own mitten story, and they can slide each picture into the mitten as they go along. You could even ask some additional questions like, where did you drop your mitten? What were you doing when you dropped it?

Different Variations:

• Instead of drawing animals, maybe your little ones can think of other objects to fit in their mitten. You could take a walk around the house, or maybe outside, and ask what they can see. Draw pictures of those things and tell a totally different story of what fits in their mittens.