Thursday, December 4, 2014

Flannel Friday: The Mitten

Inspired by the Jan Brett book, here is "The Mitten." 

Our little boy starts off with two white-as-snow mittens. 


When one of them gets dropped in the show, a rabbit takes interest...


... and crawls into the mitten.


An owl comes by and also takes interest...


... and squeezes into the mitten. A fox comes by...


... and squeezes into the mitten. Then a bear takes interest...


... and he, too, makes his way in to the mitten. Then along comes a mouse...


... who doesn't really fit, but the animals let him try. He ends up on the bear's nose...


... which causes the bear to SNEEEEEZE!!! and all the animals go flying out of the mitten and make their way home. And that's why the little boy has two mittens that look like this:


I have used this story with younger crowds (2-3 years old) and leave it at the flannel. The kids tend to love the giant sneeze and the fun sound effects I make for the animals making room in the mitten and crawling in.

With a slightly older group (4 or 5 and up), though, I start off by using the flannel to tell the story. Then I ask them to help me retell the story. I ask two children to be the mitten in the snow. They stand up and hold each other's hands. Then I ask for a volunteer to be each animal that crawls into the mitten and these volunteers fit themselves between my two mitten-ers. The mitten must expand, of course, until my two mitten-ers are barely hanging on (bursting at the seams, as it were).

The kids huddle together for the "aaaaahhhhh" then move out a bit then "aaaaaahHHHHH" again and finally "AAAAAAHH-CHHOOOOO!!!!" that sends all the kids flying around and back to their places. I help this along by calling out their animals and saying things like "Then the bear fell to the ground and trundled home" and "Then the mitten fell to the ground where Peter picked it up again to carry it home". It helps encourage them to settle down.

I've found it helps to do this story last in the storytime and go directly into the goodbye song. It definitely ends the session on a good note.

2 comments:

  1. Laura, this is beautiful and clever. This is a great book to tell on the flannel board ~ jane

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! I've always loved this story.

    ReplyDelete

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