On our next reading, Ella had a lot of fun waiting for the story cues and finding the appropriate animal and placing it in the giant mitten. The wonderful Folkmanis puppets that I mentioned yesterday were used to enhance our storytelling experience of The Mitten with the addition of a giant felt mitten! Yes, the mitten is blue, not white - I decided to borrow one that was the wrong colour rather than make one in the right colour! Initially, I hid the puppets in my lap and used them to act out the story for Ella she really enjoyed the excitement of each new animal appearing and helped me put each one in the mitten. Our enjoyment of The Mitten inspired this week’s mini-unit, which is smaller than most of our previous toddler unit studies, but we still enjoyed ourselves! I think it’s important that children respect and understand the difference between wild animals and domesticated animals, especially if they have opportunity to come into contact with them! (And this is an important Montessori principle, as well.) I would also note that while The Mitten displays positive descriptions of the animals, their potentially dangerous attributes are mentioned which would be appreciated by a family who might live in an area populated with these animals - they aren’t made out to be cuddly and cute, they are clearly depicted as wild animals capable of hurting with talons, diggers, shiny teeth, etc. This is a wonderful book that will age well for any family.

The book features beautiful Ukrainian folk patterns, clever use of descriptive adjectives, and multiple visual details that make for repeated readings (such as the small mitten “windows” on either side of each page which provide a reminding glimpse into secondary and tertiary actions running alongside the main story). The richly illustrated book tells the story of Nicki, a young boy who asks for white mittens from his Baba (grandmother), and promptly loses one, which is explored by several forest animals before it is returned to Nicki… albeit, a bit stretched out. The Mitten is a beautiful Ukrainian folk story that our family first became familiar with through the Jan Brett version.

Here are some Montessori-inspired Toddler and Preschooler activities that we enjoyed during our Mitten Unit Study. Reading Christmas Books is a favourite family tradition, and I love using children’s books to develop unit studies.

Animals from the mitten story