The Mitten Tree Story-related Math Pack for Preschoolers -

The Mitten Tree Story-related Math Pack for Preschoolers

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The Mitten Tree tells the story of an elderly woman, Sarah, an empty nester who 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 Mitten Tree Math Pack you can use with your preschoolers in your classroom or at home for fun, 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 the foundation that will support future mathematical operations.

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 Candace Christiansen as a base. Below are some ideas.

If you want to reuse these activities multiple times, print them on 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 for strengthening children’s number recognition, counting abilities, pre-writing, and fine motor skills.

Number Mittens

The Mitten Tree Math Pack includes mittens with numbers 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 match the pairs 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 preschoolers need to learn because it helps them understand the meaning of numbers and is the basis for 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 number of mittens on each tile and circle the correct number, or mark it with a clothespin.

Memory Game

This game is great for strengthening children’s concentration and memory, practicing one-to-one correspondence, and creating sets. The Mitten Tree Math Pack includes two sheets with nine cards each, with different mittens.

This game can be played individually or with a partner. Keep it simple: have the children place the cards face down. Each child selects a card at random and tries to match it with its double. The child who matches the most cards wins the game.

Visual Discrimination Activity

Preschoolers need to develop visual discrimination to identify similarities and differences in sizes, shapes, letters, numbers, colors, and positions. This essential skill will help them do important activities in life, from knowing how much cereal a bowl can hold to how many pieces of clothing to put in a washer, for example.

I also included an activity in The Mitten Tree Math Pack to help children practice visual discrimination by 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 — 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 make predictions, understand what comes next, make logical connections, and 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.

You can use this literacy pack by itself or combine it with the FREE literacy pack I’ve created for the same story to take advantage of the opportunity this book offers. Remember that for a more comprehensive and complete educational process, you should not divorce literacy from math, science, or any other domain. They intermingle together and complement each other.

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. Just click the button below and enter your information for an immediate download.

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

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

Love,

P.D. Please let me know if these activities worked for you, or if 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 more than posting something you might find useful. Also, if you have different ideas to celebrate Mitten Tree Day and want to share them, I would love to post them as well.