The Mitten – Activites, Lesson Plans and Ideas
The Mitten, by Jan Brett is an excellent book to read with your ELL students during the long Winter doldrums that continue on after the return back to school from the long holiday break.
I’d like to give my friend Miss Christie a special shout out for reminding me about what a fabulous resource Jan Brett’s book, The Mitten is for ELL students.
The main reason I like The Mitten is because it’s the perfect Winter themed activity that is great to use during the January/February doldrums.
The sites I’ve included below, contain lots of activities, lesson plans and ideas that you can use in your classroom.
Jan Brett’s Site – Includes some really cute PDF printouts that you can use to have the children retell the story while they “tuck” the animals inside the mittens.
The Animals that you can tuck inside the mitten.
The Fly Swat Game
The fly swat game is very versatile. You can use it for spelling, academic vocabulary, math and just about any subject that requires students to identify a word, sentence, phrase, number or equation.
I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of this game.
Here’s how we play it in my classroom. First, I divide the board up into two sides, a side for the boy’s team and a side for the girl’s team. Next, I assign a score keeper. The score keeper sits on a little stool off to the side and keeps track of the points.
On the board, I put up the vocabulary words we are studying or short sentences that focus on the grammatical skills we are building. I’ve even put up clocks to reinforce time-telling skills.
This is also a great game to play for test reviews and reinforcing vocabulary.
Vocabulary Director & Word Detective Literature Circle Response Cards
Literature Circle response cards help students focus in on their task without overwhelming them.
I cruised through my little stash of literature circle resources and decided to condense them into a mini version of some of my favorite literature circle worksheets.
It’s a work in progress…
Vocabulary Director and Word Detective Response Cards - This page contains two vocabulary cards.
The first one is for the Vocabulary Director job. The instructions are below.
While you’re reading, write down at least four words that are new to you. Write down the page number, the paragraph and line you found it on. Write the word and the definition that best fits the sentence. Record the information in the space provided on the cart below. Your next task is to come up with a presentation plan. How will you present it to your group? Will you challenge your group mates to a race to see who will find the word first? Be creative!
The second one is for the Word Detective. The instructions are below.
While you’re reading, write down at least four words that are new to you. Write down the word and the word origin. Does the word contain any Greek or Latin root words? What is the meaning of the root word? Find the definition that best fits the sentence. Record the information in the space provided on the chart below.
Unit Spelling Words
What's the scoop? Well, the scoop is that each week the new spelling words will be posted in a PowerPoint that has links to the dictionary for definitions, pronunciation and oh, so much more!
Each week from now on, until the end of the school year, I will post our new unit spelling words. Even if you aren’t part of my class, please feel free to download a copy of the PPT and use it in your classroom to reinforce spelling and vocabulary.
Next to each word will be a “click here” link. The link will take you directly to the dictionary where there will be the definitions, examples and a sound file that students can listen to for the correct pronunciation of the targeted word.