During mitten week in preschool and in order to get the full effect and experience wearing mittens/gloves and not wearing mittens/gloves, the students put small toys in bowls of water to freeze in the freezer overnight.

They filled several bowls with water then put one or two small toys in each bowl. Then they put the bowls in the freezer overnight. They froze legos, a small dinosaur, small pieces of play food, and little characters.

The next day they got the bowls out of the freezer. The water was now ice and the toys were frozen into bowls. They were able to see and feel the difference of touching the ice with their bare hands and with mittens/gloves on.

They loved trying to get the toys out of the ice. They talked about what was happening to the ice as it was out of the freezer and beginning to melt.

During mitten week in preschool, the students have been reading The Mitten by Jan Brett. I saw the idea for this reading comprehension activity from Pre-k Pages.

I printed out the pictures of the animals in the story and some pictures of animals not in the story. The students had to recall and decide which animals were mentioned in the story. They separated the pictures on the table.

Use an empty cereal box to make a snowman in preschool. Paint the complete front side of the box white. Paint two plastic cups blue and attach to each side of the box for ears. Use small black circles of construction paper for two eyes. Use more small black circles in the shape of a smile for the mouth. Cut an orange triangle from construction paper for the carrot nose. Cut a green strip of construction paper for the scarf and attach to the bottom part of the box.

Mitten week is a great time in preschool to learn left hand and right hand. In my preschool class the students are reading and learning about The Mitten book by Jan Brett.

We traced mittens on a sheet of paper and labeled each one with left hand and right hand. Then the students made a handprint with paint on the correct mitten.

During mitten week, the preschool students used their math skills to sort mittens by size. They sorted the mittens into groups of small, medium, and large mittens.

The preschool students worked their young finger muscles during mitten week. We set up a clothesline with a rope hung between two chairs. The students gathered all of their mittens and gloves (labeled with their initials, of course, so the mittens/gloves could be returned to the correct student). They worked to hang each mitten/glove on the clothesline by holding the mitten on the clothesline and pinching the clothespin to attach it to the line.

This is a great exercise in fine motor practice.