Mrs. Nash's Second Grade
Class Page
Cumberland School
Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin
The Mitten

 

      We enjoyed working on  two collaborative internet writing projects associated with  FROSTY READERS 2002.  Part of the project has our class  working with Mrs. Jacoby's 2nd grade class in Arlington MA. Both classes have read and discussed the book The Mitten by Jan Brett.
      After reading the book, we decided to work on “direction following” skills, which involve both reading and writing directions! 
     Lanise and I agreed that the directions should be kept as simple as possible. However, we both found out that SIMPLE was not as simple as it seemed!  After countless email planning, both Lanise and I were ready for what we thought would be a fun project!    WE WERE RIGHT!!!!!!   :-)
This was one of the most rewarding projects either of us has ever been involved in!
     Using a template from Jan Brett's site, each student in my class designed their own personal mitten. After they finished their drawing/design, they had to write the directions for recreating their mitten. The children soon learned that direction writing was no easy task, especially when told that they only had a certain amount of time to write, revise, and edit! Once when the students felt they were done, I drew a large mitten on chart paper. I then asked ONE student to READ his directions, while ANOTHER STUDENT tried to RECREATE the mitten based on the directions being read! WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!  My class saw first hand how important it is to write exactly what you want someone to draw!   After several days of rewritings, their directions were then emailed to  Mrs. Jacoby's 2nd grade class in Arlington MA.  Theclass in Arlington was doing the same thing!  We  thought the next step would be very easy!  After all, how hard could it be to recreate mittens from another second grader?
We soon received our directions  from MA  and now we were  ready to recreate the Arlington mittens!
                We quickly learned that  following directions was more difficult than writing them!  Like Mrs. Jacoby's class in Arlington,  we had many questions and,  using drafts,  we too drew, and redrew the mittens.
Both second grade classes were amazed at how several of the mittens were almost an exact match! Many students either WROTE or FOLLOWED  directions extremely well!

Take A Look!


 
DANIELLE'S MITTEN   redrawn by PIPER

Danielle's Directions
Mitten Directions

Supplies: 
1 box of Crayola Classic 10 Color markers.
1 mitten template from Jan Brett’s site. 

Directions:

1. First draw 8 green zig zag lines on the thumb.   Color the space between the zig zag lines blue.

2. Next draw a red horizontal zig zag line through   the middle of the mitten. Draw 8 orange hearts   in a line from right to left under the zig zag line.

3. Above the red zig zag line  make a big purple   star with 5 points.  Color  the inside of the star   yellow.  Make 8 blue vertical lines under the    orange hearts.

4. Then in the middle of the blue vertical lines put   the color red.

5. Last color the braids blue. 
 

by Danielle

LEO'S  MITTEN  redrawn by  GRAHAM

Leo's Directions
Mitten Directions

Supplies: 
1 box of Crayola Classic 10 Color markers.
1 mitten template from Jan Brett’s site. 

Directions:

1. First get a yellow and an orange marker out. 

2. Then trace the mitten yellow.

3. Next color the braids orange.

4. Then make a swirl on the thumb yellow.

5. After that make a swirl on the top of the mitten  orange.

6. Next make yellow and orange small dots all
 over the mitten. Lots of them, even in between
 the braids.

7.     Last, make one big yellow swirl covering the   whole mitten except the thumb.
 

                That is how you make my mitten!

by Leo

KARYN'S MITTEN  redrawn by  ADDIE

Karyn's Directions
Mitten Directions

Supplies: 
1 box of Crayola Classic 10 Color markers.
1 mitten template from Jan Brett’s site. 

Directions:

1. First make a picture of a dog face in the middle   of the mitten. Make the face  a circle using a  yellow marker. Don’t color the   circle in. Make the ears orange, eyes blue,  mouth and nose black.

2. Make 3 horizontal lines at the top of the mitten.  2 reds and 1 black. Make the black in the middle   of the 2 reds.

3. Make 3 blue vertical lines from the red line to   the head of the dog. Then take the purple and   do the same thing from bottom of the dog face   to the top of the braids.

4. Draw 2 horizontals line going right from the    dogs head to the end of the mitten. Brown on   top and pink below the brown. On the left draw horizontal lines gray and green. Put the   gray on the top and the green on the bottom on  the left side.

5. Then take the green and the black and the blue
 and the brown and the purple markers. Take the  green and make a dot right above the brown line  in the middle of the space. Take the black and   make a dot right in he middle of the space  above the gray line.  Then take the purple and   put a dot on the thumb.

6. Now take the blue marker and place a dot in the   middle of the space below the green line.

7.  Take the brown marker and make a round dot
 in the midle of the space below the pink line.

by Karyn
 
 
 

 

JORDAN'S MITTEN  redrawn by  BILLY

Jordan's Directions

Mitten Directions

Supplies: 
1 box of Crayola Classic 10 Color markers.
1 mitten template from Jan Brett’s site. 

Directions:

1. Make the outline of mitten red.

2. After the red outline make a yellow outline.

3. Then make 4 sets of blue triangles spread out   over the 4 corners of the mitten but not on the   part where the braids 

4. Now color the braids  blue.

5. Next between the braids made it orange.

6. Next all rest make it red with black dots.

 By Jordan
 

 

NICK B'S MITTEN  redrawn by  NICK

Nick B's Directions
Mitten Directions

Supplies: 
1 box of Crayola Classic 10 Color markers.
1 mitten template from Jan Brett’s site. 

Directions:

1. Make a pink outline around the inside of mitten. 

2. Color the braids red.

3. Make 5 green zig zag lines in the thumb.

4. Make a diagonal blue zig zag line from the top to  the  middle.

5. Make a purple zig zag line from the top of the   mitten  to the top of the braids.

6. Fill in the top half of the mitten green.

7. Fill in the bottom half of the mitten orange
 
 

by Nick B.
 
 
 

 

CHRISTINE'S MITTEN  redrawn by  MARY

Christine's  Directions
Mitten Directions

Supplies: 
1 box of Crayola Classic 10 Color markers.
1 mitten template from Jan Brett’s site. 

Directions:

1. First color the braids pink.
 

2. Next color  in between the braids yellow.
 

3. After that color the mitten zigzag blue, then   zigzag purple, then zigzag blue, then zigzag    purple, (horizontally)  from the top of the mitten (including the thumb) to the top of the braids.

4.    Now put 4 light green flowers in between every   braid. put a red dot in the middle of the flowers.  Put a blue flower in the middle of the 4 flowers like this (2 green, 1 blue, 2 green). 

5. Then put 6 black dots in the purple zigzag and  don`t put it the blue zigzag (do the thumb).

6. Now put 6 light green dots on the blue zigzag   and put it on the thumb too.
 
 

by Christine

 

NICK F'S MITTEN  redrawn by  BRANDON

Nick F's Directions
Mitten Directions

Supplies: 
1 box of Crayola Classic 10 Color markers.
1 mitten template from Jan Brett’s site. 

Directions:

1. Color the first 2 braids on the right red .
2. Color the 2 middle braids green.
3. Color the 2 braids on the left blue.
4. color the space in between the braids gray
5. Color the thumb red.
6. Color the top 4 inches of the mitten yellow. 
7. Color the middle 3 inches of the mitten black.
8. Color the bottom 2 inches of the mitten purple(  above the braids).
 

by Nick F. 

MITTEN RESOURCES
(A big THANKS to my mitten partner for finding these
terrific resources! Thanks "L" you're the best!)

Design you own Mitten
The Kitten and Mitten Activity Page
Cards and Envelopes from The Mitten
Make a Mitten Postcard
A Webquest for The Mitten
Carol Hurst Ideas for The Mitten
SCORE: The Mitten-Teacher Guide
Teacher View Lesson for Grade 3
The Mitten Curriculum Web
 
 


 

Take a look at our work for Jan Brett's book The Hat



© Patricia Knox & Susan Silverman - Frosty Readers 2002 - All Rights Reserved