The Mitten

Boy does it feel good to be back!  The children had a great day.  They fell right back into the classroom routine without a glitch.

To begin the month our centers will focus around the theme winter clothes.  Today we read the story The Mitten Jan Brett.  This story reminded us of the story Gingerbread Baby, which we read in November.  When a child reads we ask them to make connections.  We want them to connect the story they are reading to something familiar in their lives, another story, or even an event that has happened in the world.  We call the connections we make to other books text-to-text-connections.

After reading the story the children were broken into centers.  One center they visited was called Mitten Match.  On the wash line I hung mittens with the capital letters on them.  The children worked cooperatively to match lowercase mittens to the capitals.  When they were done they practiced writing the letters on a dry erase board.  At Miss Sue's center the children sewed a mitten together.  At one of the independent centers the children colored the characters from the story The Mitten.  We will use both the mitten and the characters to retell the story on Monday.  At my center the children journaled their age and what they like to do in school.  They then drew a self portrait.  I will use this journal to assess if they are able to draw a picture with six traits.  I will also compare it to the picture that they drew the first day of school, to see if their is growth.