The Mitten

This afternoon we read The Mitten, by Jan Brett. I don't think I would normally have picked up this book, because I've seen it many times and never have, but it was recommended by Child Care Village.com. I'm using CCVillage with Josiah (3) for preschool. It's by no means a complete curriculum, but it works for me. Anyway, we all really enjoyed the book. The kids though it was really funny that ALL of those animals would fit into ONE mitten.

Afterwards, we did a project that was also at CCVillage. Here is what we did:

First, we cut off the top of a tissue box (we've all been sick). Then, we put in a paper cut-out of a mitten, dabs of paint, and all of the marbles left in our Aggravation game.

Next, the kids took turns shaking up the marbles. Only a few times did they go too crazy and painted marbles went flying onto the kitchen tile!

After the paint dried, we cut out the mitten shapes and glued them onto construction paper.

Considering there was a 7, 6, 3 and 1 1/2 year old AND paint involved, I'd say it went pretty well. Even the baby enjoyed the pictures in the book and we only ended up with one baby sock stepped in paint.

Here they all posed with the book after we were finished. See - all still smiling. :)

I think I will try to continue to do these easier preschool projects in the afternoons when we are home. It's difficult for me to get to these hands on things with the littler ones when I am trying to work with the older ones. This seemed to work very well for us.

-Julee