During our study of winter, we read two different versions of the traditional Ukrainian folk tale, The Mitten. It is such a charming story and we loved hearing it again and again!
We retold the story using paper puppets for each animal and placing them inside a "hand-sewn" mitten. The children attempted punched their own holes (with PLENTY of adult help!) and I taught a little sewing lesson using yarn.
The kids did a great job lacing and using their props to retell the story of The Mitten. Be sure to ask your child to tell you the story at home!
As a class, we made a "thinking map" of all the characters in each version of the story.
Then each child made his/her own map. I just love their drawings of each animal!
These thinking maps helped us sort through the similarities and differences in each version of the story. I cut apart my own thinking maps so each animal could be placed in the correct spot on our Venn Diagram.
We've added the books to our treehouse library where the children can read for pleasure. I've also written the lines of the story onto sentence strips to be sequenced in our pocket chart literacy station. We will continue to return to this story for many more weeks since we enjoyed it so much!
