Mittens and Hats Story Time

I'm using a winter theme again while I still can with mittens & hats.  One of the books I chose to go with this theme ended up being really funny in terms of how old it was.

The Books:

Three Little Kittens by Marilyn Janovitz

Whose Hat? by Margaret Miller

The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg

Favorite: Three Little Kittens. The kids thought it was hilarious that the kittens would eat pie with mittens on. I was planning on reading the board book about the Three Little Kittens story from Despicable Me movie, but I forgot to bring it. The little finger puppets attached to the book are so cute. Forgetting the book was probably a blessing in disguise though because the kids were especially grabby today with the felt board, so I'm sure that book would not have survived if I brought it in.

Whose Hat? by Margaret Miller was a great book, except for a few dated hats. We had fun trying to figure out who was wearing a hat and got most of the right, except for the nurse's hat. Of course, there's really no need to discard this book for one page, so if I read this again, I might skip that page. This would actually make a great flannelboard. I'll have to get on that for next time.

Paper boat? What is it?????

Oh! A nurse!

Love the pants.

Flannelboard: Mitten Match
No rhyme. I just called out a color and had the kids come up and match their mittens to the one of that color.

What was in the Memory Box?
A felt cat. All the kids wanted to "pet" the cat. 

Craft:
I saw this cute idea online and even though it was painting (gasp! parents freak whenever I get out the paint!) I thought they would like the keepsake of their child's hand prints. And I was right.

This rebel didn't want to get his hands dirty, so we compromised with just one.

Snowman Story Time

Since it might not be Winter much longer here in NJ, I wanted to get the obligatory "snowman" story time out of the way. With the holidays and being closed, I haven't had much time to come up with a cooler theme. Eh, it happens.

The Books:

Snow Party by Harriet Ziefert

A Winter Day by Douglas Florian

The First Day of Winter by Denise Fleming

Spring Snowman adapted by Jill Barnes

I really liked The First Day of Winter by Denise Fleming even though it is about the beginning of winter, but it is about building a snowman, so it didn't really matter about the time of year.  This story has the potential to be a great flannelboard without lots of pieces.

Spring Snowman is the saddest book I've ever read. The illustrations are sad, but I really liked the idea. The forest animals are excited because Spring is coming and try to explain Spring to the Snowman. Of course, the Snowman melts and in its place grows a bunch of white flowers in the shape of a snowman, hence the Spring Snowman. Really cute story, creepily drawn animals. The book is so old that I couldn't find an image online. I had to take a picture of the book!

Activity: Five Snowmen
Made this from clip art and just colored their hats different colors.

What was in the Memory Box?
Since I couldn't hide actual snow in the box for fear of melting, (aw man!) I hid a snowman left from an old snowman craft. All the kids wanted to "pet" the snowman.

Craft: 
I don't have a picture of this, but I gave everyone a piece of blue construction paper, three circles, crayon and white paint. They were able to make finger print snowflakes with the paint after they assembled and colored their snowmen. Very easy craft.