This week our class has read and studied The Mitten by Jan Brett.
In the book, a Ukrainian boy named Nicki wants his grandmother Baba to knit snow-white mittens for him. She warns her grandson that a white mitten will be hard to find if he loses it in the snow, but of course he promptly does just that! What happens next is the surprising part, as a mole takes refuge in the lost mitten, then a rabbit, then a hedgehog, an owl, a badger, and a fox. If you think the mitten might be a wee bit stretched out at this point, just wait: "Then a big bear sniffed at the mitten. The animals were packed in tight, but the bear didn't care. He crawled in anyway." When a tiny mouse squeezes in, her whiskers tickle the bear's nose. He sneezes, and "Aaaaa-aaaaa-ca-chew!" all the animals fly out of their crocheted cave. As the mitten sails through the air, Nicki spots it, reclaims it, and takes it home to show his smiling Baba.
It is a great book to help us study characters, setting, sequence of events, and beginning middle and end. We had fun all week doing different activities that went along with The Mitten. Today, we took the story and did a Reader's Theater with it. We used a red blanket as the mitten and each of the animals climbed in one by one. The children really enjoyed it.
