The Mitten

The Mitten by Jan Brett is a favourite of mine. I love adding visual supports to work on sequencing and retelling this story.

You can find target words on The Mitten speech chart.
Use The Mitten game board to target speech sounds. Roll the dice and practice your target word the number of times shown on the dice.
Retelling using the sequencing cards or story props is a great way to work on carry over of sounds into conversation.

Concepts –
- sequencing concepts – use the story props and sequencing pictures to retell the story and focus on sequencing concepts (first, next, then, after, before, when, last, etc.)
- size concepts – big, bigger, biggest, small, smaller, smallest, tiny, tinier, tiniest
Describing
- describe the animals from the story – what they look like/sound like/feel like, what they do, how they move, what size they are, where they live, etc.
Comparing and contrasting
- talk about how the animals are the same and different
- while playing a game of memory, tell one way the animals are similar and one way they are different before flipping the cards over again
Categories
- sort animals based on habitat
Fancy Words
- introduce some fancy vocabulary. Turn this into a memory game by printing two copies of these and printing this on the back of each page.

Plurals – count the animals as they go into the mitten. Count the animals you collect while playing The Mitten board game (directions).
Pronouns – talk about Nikki using male pronouns (he, his, him, himself) and Baba using female pronouns (she, her, hers, herself).
Prepositions – the animals go “in” the mitten, the mouse goes “on top” of the bear’s nose, the animals fly “out” when the bear sneezes, Nikki’s mitten flies “into” the air. Use the game board props to move animals beside, behind, on top, under, above, below, between, in, etc.
Verbs – choose a verb tense to use as you retell the story (e.g., present tense, past tense using the story props or sequencing cards.

Inferencing – ask thought questions as you read the story. What do you think will happen when…? Do you think the bear will fit? I wonder if a badger could fit in your mitten… I wonder what Baba is thinking?
Story telling –
- use the story props or sequencing cards to retell the story
- act out the story
Phonological awareness –
- Rhyming – sing Willoughby Wallaby with the story prop visuals. Willoughby Wallaby wadger, an elephant sat on a…badger. Willoughby Wallaby wear, an elephant sat on a…bear.
- Sound identification –
  - Play guess the animal using the story prop visuals. Hide one animal in the mitten and give the first sound as a hint. See who can figure out the missing animal!
  - Using the game board activity, listen for the first sound in the animal’s name before placing it in your mitten.
- Segmenting – clap the syllables in the animal names (use these, these, or do this while playing the game. [game board directions])