M is for Mitten

Yesterday we finished our study of the letter “M”. Here are some of the highlights of our morning.

We started by reading the book The Mitten by Jan Brett. Jan Brett’s illustrations always make her books more enjoyable. The children really liked looking at all of the details in her drawings. The story itself was cute, and the children couldn’t imagine all of the animals in the book fitting into one of their mittens.

After the story the children colored an animal coloring page from Jan Brett’s site. During their play time I cut out all of the animals and put their names on the back of each.

Later, I read the book again and the children used their animal cut-outs to act out the story. I gave each child a little mitten that a good friend of mine got at a thrift store. This was a fun activity.

With more of the thrift store mittens I created a counting/number center activity. I labeled 10 mittens 1-10. The children took turns putting them in the correct order. A few of the children decided to match up the mittens with the numbers on our big number line on the floor. I thought this was a great idea.

The children got to take home their folders yesterday. Included in their folders was their letter “Mm” tracing paper and mini book from First School, their mitten with the animals from the activity above, a number seven tracing paper from this site, a monkey picture they colored Monday from The Complete Daily Curriculum for Early Childhood, and a copy of “No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” (See Monday’s post.).

The children had painted their folders on Wednesday with marshmallows. My son made a large rectangle on his folder.

This week we have been singing some Christmas songs, and since music goes with “M” we sang a little more than usual. We made some little jingle bell instruments from a pipe cleaner and three little jingle bells. My little guy has been singing “Jingle, jingle, jingle.” all week. 🙂

We had a great week, and will learn about the letter “N” next week. Have a great weekend!