Week 15- The Mitten

The Mitten by Jan Brett is an adapted version of a Ukranian folk tale.  In the story, a young boy asks his grandmother to knit him mittens that are "as white as snow."  His grandmother is afraid that he will lose them but knits them for him anyway.  Sure enough, he drops one in the snow and doesn't realize it.  Soon thereafter, a mole discovers the lost mitten and snuggles into it.  He is followed by seven other animals, including a bear.  The last straw is when a mouse tries to climb in and tickles the bears nose.  The bear sneezes and all of the animals come flying out of the mitten.  This was such a great story and wonderfully illustrated.  There was so much to see on each page.  And boy, did we find lots of things to do with it

We started the week out by making our own mitten with animals.  A great deal of our inspiration/activities came directly from the author's website (check it out here!).  Also, we made a mitten tree (see under Bible section).

Next, we started some of the lapbook activities (from Homeschool Creations).  The first was differentiating left and right mittens.  And then, we arranged mittens from smallest to largest.  I thought it would be fun to use some of our mittens/gloves to do the activity as well.

The author (website) provides instructions on how to draw the bear in the story.

They tried their best to follow the directions- this is how they turned out:

"C" on the left, "B" on the right.

I found a great writing assignment from What the Teacher Wants! blog.  The boys had to come up with a different animal to crawl into the mitten and a reason why it wanted inside.  I helped them spell some of their words.  Then they drew a picture of the animal.  We covered it up with a mitten afterward to "hide" the animal in the mitten.

The author also provides face masks of all the animals from the story.  The boys sequenced them and then used them for a puppet show.

We did some various other lapbook activities (counting, sequencing, phonics, etc):

We finished up the week by making some adorable hedgehog cookies (also on authors website):

Some great go-along books that we read were:  The Three Little Kittens by Paul Galdone, The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg and One Mitten by Kristine O'Connell George.

BIBLE

   We started discussing the birth narrative this week, specifically the angel visiting Mary and then visiting Joseph.  We talked about obedience & God's promises.  Mary & Joseph believed and obeyed the messages that the angel had given to them.  God always keeps His promises.  Their memory verse was Colossians 3:20:

Children obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.  Colossians 3:20

They started the week by coloring a picture of Mary and Gabriel and adding stickers, glitter & yarn.  They did remember that Gabriel was the angel that visited Zacharias!  

  They also did two other angel crafts this week:

"C" finally smiling in a picture!

 Finally, we made a mitten tree.  On each mitten we wrote one of God's promises or a promise that they were going to keep.  We hung it on some branches I had gathered from outside.  It turned out really cute and we'll be adding to it this week.

Mommy's Learning Moment of the Week:
  I wonder what God thinks of my slow learning abilities.  I finally have these "aha!" moments and He's probably thinking, It's about time!  There have been so many "aha" moments lately that it is not merely a coincidence, but God trying to show me how I should be living.  My learning moment this week didn't necessarily come from the boys but was about obedience.  I've been listening to some messages on the Power of Words (by Joyce Meyer).  I'm usually not a huge fan of hers, but she does make some awesome points in this series.  One such point is complaining.  How often do I complain?  I'm sure I do almost every day.  She referenced the OT story of the Israelites searching for the promised land.  This was supposed to be an 11 day journey...an 11 day jouney! But ended up taking 40 years!  The Israelites grumbled and complained most of their trip until the very end.  How quick of a trip would it have been if they would have obeyed and trusted God from the beginning?  How quickly would I get through my "tests" if I would stop worrying/complaining and relying on God?

 

MATH

   This week, the boys worked on adding 1 to 0-9.  After "quizzing" them at the breakfast/lunch/dinner table, I can say with confidence that they have learned this.  Some of their work:

HANDWRITING

 We reviewed "Magic C" capitals and started "A" and "S".  Next week we'll wrap up all capital letters.

PHONICS

  "B" & "C" keep chugging along with their reading skills.  They read 3 new books this past week.  They have added helper words "says", "this" and "of".  They learned new short "u" sound words that ended in -ug, -ub and -un.  I'll post a reading video next week.