The Mitten Tree Story-related Math Pack for Preschoolers

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This is the story about an elderly woman, Sarah, who is an empty nester and misses the days when she used to say goodbye to her children by the blue spruce. One day she saw a little boy who was watching the other kids play with the snow, but he didn’t have mittens. She decided to knit some mittens for him and left them by the spruce as a surprise. This is the beginning of the story that ends with a pair of mittens for every child and surprise baskets with yarn for Sarah.

I’ve included a FREE The Mitten Tree Math Pack that you can use with your preschoolers in your classroom or at home, for fun and educational math activities related to this beautiful story. You can download it at the end of this post.

Importance of Learning Math

It is important to help preschoolers develop their mathematical thinking, to build up the foundation that will help them do mathematical operations in the future.

Some of the benefits that the development of mathematical thinking provides include:

Creative and critical thinking process.
Problem solving.
Communication.
Understanding of patterns, sizes, and shapes.
Ability to understand the world around them.

The Mitten Tree Math Pack

There are many math activities you can do using The Mitten Tree story by Candance Christiansen as a base. Below some ideas.

If you want to reuse these activities multiple times you will have to print them in white cardstock and laminate them or use dry-erase pockets for the ones you don’t have to cut out. To do this, you will need these materials:

Tracing Numbers

The Mitten Tree Math Pack includes one page with tracing numbers from 0 to 20. Invite the children to trace the letters and numbers using a pencil, crayon, or marker.

This activity is great to strengthen the children’s number recognition, counting abilities, pre-writing, and fine motor skills.

Number Mittens

The Mitten Tree Math Pack includes mittens with all the numbers from 0 to 20. You can use these numbers to extend the previous activity by:

Teaching or reviewing the numbers 0 to 20.
Have them count manipulatives such as mini trees, bingo chips, buttons, mini snowflakes, mini erasers, etc., according to each number.
Match each number with magnetic, foam or wooden numbers.
Copy the numbers with pencils, crayons or markers.
Order the numbers from 0 to 20, and vice versa.
Use the numbers to make simple sums and take away.

Matching Activity

The Mitten Tree Math Pack includes two pages with 24 tiles that have 12 pairs of mittens. Invite the children to find and put together the matching pair of mittens.

To extend the activity you can ask the children to:

Count how many mittens are in total.
Use the tiles for a memory game.
Make a graph with their favorite mittens.

Counting Activity

Counting is an essential skill that preschoolers need to learn because it helps them understand the meaning of numbers, and is the base for all the other number concepts.

To help them practice this skill I included two sheets with six tiles each, with different quantities in The Mitten Tree Math Pack. The children have to count the amount of mitten in each tile, and circle the correct number or have them mark it with a clothespin.

Memory Game

This game is great to strengthen the children’s concentration, memory, work on one-to-one correspondence, and create sets. The Mitten Tree Math Pack includes two sheets with nine cards each, with different mittens.

This game can be played as an individual activity or with a partner. Keep it super simple and have the children place the cards face down. Each child has to select a card randomly and try to match the selected card with its double. The child that matches the most cards wins the game.

Visual Discrimination Activity

It is important that preschoolers develop their visual discrimination to be able to identify and recognize similarities and differences not only in sizes, but also in shapes, letters, numbers, colors, and positions. It is an essential skill that will allow doing important activities in life from knowing how much cereal a bowl can hold to many pieces of clothes to put in a washer, for example.

I also included in The Mitten Tree Math Pack an activity to help children practice their visual discrimination identifying which mitten in the row is different. The pack comes with two sheets with four strips each, for a total of eight different strips. You can either keep the sheets together or divide the strips.

The Mitten Tree Which is Different? Activity

Pattern Activity

Patterns can be found everywhere, and it is important that children learn to identify them, to be able to make predictions and understand what comes next, to make logical connections, develop their reasoning skills, visual discrimination, and fine motor skills.

The Mitten Tree Math Pack includes two sheets with four strips each, to complete the patterns.

Other Books You Can Add

Remember to fill your library, centers, and book baskets with good books every theme and season. Below are some examples of books you can use for this season. Most of these books can be found at your local library, and used bookstore. You can also get them very easily through my Amazon affiliate links by clicking the titles.

Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter by Kenard Pak. A brother and sister explore nature and take a stroll through their town, saying goodbye to autumn and welcoming the glorious first snow of winter.

Pete the Cat: Snow Daze by James Dean. The school is canceled, and Pete cannot wait to enjoy a snowy day filled with snowball fights, hot chocolate, snowcats, and more with his friends.

What Can You See in Winter? by Sian Smith. This book takes emergent readers on a tour of things they can see in winter including typical winter activities and changes in the natural world, using beautiful photos, very simple repeated text, high frequency, and decodable words, and strong photo-to-text matching.

Pin It For Later

If you are in a rush and don’t have time to read the post and download the printable but want to save it for later, pin this to your Math board on Pinterest for later.

Then check out other story-related activities below, to add them to your collection.

Don’t forget to download your FREE The Mitten Tree Math Pack. You just have to click the button below and enter your information, for an immediate download.

Then check out other story-related activities below, to add them to your collection.

I hope these ideas help you not only for the Mitten Tree Day celebration but also as part of your lesson plans for Winter.

Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.

Love,

P.D. Please let me know if you like these activities worked for you, or you think I need to add or replace something. My goal is to help you in any way I can and I don’t like anything better than to post something that you might find useful. Also, if you came up with different ideas to celebrate Mitten Tree Day and want to share them, I will love to post them as well.