The Mitten activities and lesson plan ideas

Our The Mitten Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Jan Brett's book. Read aloud the winter picture book then use the printables or go paperless with Google or Seesaw to practice standards-based skills.

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH:

◼️ READING STRATEGIES

☐ making inferences

☐ making predictions

☐ analyzing illustrations

☐ making connections

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ cause and effect

☐ sequencing

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ responsibility

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ homophones

☐ time order words

☐ prepositions

☐ nouns

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

In Jan Brett’s The Mitten, a young boy named Nicki wants his grandmother to knit him snow-white mittens. Although she warns him they could get lost in the snow, she makes the mittens anyway. When Nicki goes out to play, he drops one of the mittens in the snow and does not realize it. Soon a mole comes by and decides the mitten is a warm cozy place to stay. Eventually, more and more animals (rabbit, owl, fox, bear, mouse, hedgehog) move inside the mitten.

It is crowded inside the mitten and it continues to stretch bigger and bigger. When the mouse climbs on top of the bear's nose, it tickles and the bear sneezes. All of the animals go flying out of the mitten! As Nicki walks home he sees his mitten flying through the sky. He returns home and Baba is confused about the large, stretched-out mitten.

THIS COLLECTION OF ACTIVITIES and LESSON IDEAS INCLUDES:

➜ Comprehension Questions categorized by reading strategy; text-dependent
➜ Social-Emotional Learning guidance lesson ideas & discussion topics based on the story
➜ Vocabulary Activities with kid-friendly definitions
➜ Grammar Topics selected to align with the text
➜ Focus Sentences use the book & author's craft as a mentor text to improve writing
➜ Lesson Planner summary, background info and planning space

➜ Story Mapping Printable identify character, setting, problem and solution

➜ Making Words Activity Page use any word from the book

➜ Focus Sentence copy work, identifying elements of the sentence, rewriting)

➜ Design a New Book Cover demonstrate understanding of the text by creating an illustration

➜ Predicting Activity primary-ruled and wider-ruled versions
➜ Summarizing Somebody → Wanted → But → Then → Finally

➜ Comparing and Contrasting using a Venn Diagram

➜ Cause and Effect analyze how events affect one another

➜ Visualization illustrate visualizations from the story and support thinking with text-based evidence

➜ Making Connections identify text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections

➜ Thematic Writing Paper Use with the Writing Prompts... Makes a Great Bulletin Board

➜ 2 Sequencing Activities First → Next → Then → Last and Beginning → Middle → End

➜ 2 Vocabulary Activities Vocabulary Booklet and Word Mapping

➜ 2 Character Trait Activities listing traits and supporting traits with text-based evidence
➜ 30 Text-Based Writing Prompts 3 prompts for each of the following types of writing:

• narrative
• persuasive / opinion
• descriptive
• expository / informative
• creative / story writing
• procedure / how-to
• list-making
• letter / postcard writing
• poem
• book reviews

INCLUDED DIGITAL ACTIVITIES:

➜ 5 Teaching Slides to use for instruction (add questions, vocabulary, instructions, etc)

➜ 15 Student Pages for use in Google™️ Classroom or as editable files to create customized printables