Your students will love this winter inspired read and retell activity activity!
I have three different versions of “The Mitten” book. Each book presents the same story from three slightly different perspectives. Â I brought all three of my mitten books to share with the kids…
Introducing a Story
Out of the three versions of “The Mitten,”  I chose to read, “The Mitten” by Jim Aylesworth to my class. The Aylesworth version of the book may not be as well known as the very popular Jan Brett version but I find the Jim Aylesworth’s version wonderfully simple to read to my three year olds.  I love the illustrations and the simple way the story is told…
Comparing and Contrasting
After reading the Aylesworth version of “The Mitten,” I brought out the other two copies of “The Mitten” and we compared the differences between the three different mitten books. Â We looked through the pictures of all three books and noticed how the animals were different, how the mittens looked different, in what way each mitten was lost in the story, in what way the animals got out of the mittens, and how the mittens looked at the end of the story…
Retelling the Story
This led to a simple but thoughtful discussion on how each author used their own imaginations and ideas to tell the same story – just like we can do. Â Then we did our own retelling of the Mitten Book…
I had a large mitten shape made out of tape on the floor to use as our mitten prop. Â Instead of animals, we had children climbing in our mitten to keep warm…
Having fun!
As the story went along, each child was invited to climb into the mitten and since our mitten was getting full, the children had to adjust how they sat in the mitten so they would all fit inside…
And at the end of our story, all the children were thrown out of the mitten because someone gave a big sneeze! Only our mitten didn’t fall apart…
I just happened to have met Jim Aylesworth last year at a conference. While there, I purchased his version of the mitten book. Â I like having different versions of some of my favorite books to share with the children and was pleased to discover Jim’s version…