Mitten madness part 5

Mitten kit #41
In/out sight word activity.


I plan not to point at the words or even say anything about the words. Travis learned to read the words in and out without me having to "teach". I think he must have seen the words so often with games like this he just picked it up. I will say lets see what is IN this mitten. Then ask Demi to take them OUT and set them on the paper near the word out. We will talk about the surprises we found IN the mitten. We will chat about IN and OUT. I will try to sound very excited as we take turns finding new stuff in the mitten. I will let you all know if it works as well as it did with Travis.

Mitten kit #42
Right and left mittens.

If the mittens go on the wrong hands the fingers show and they will get cold (I will shiver until we get it right).


Mitten kit #43
Mitten left right games.
I cut out about 20 mittens and wrote left and right on them. If you flip the left hand mitten over it says right on the other side.

First game I came up with is mitten stomp. I call it mitten stomp so it sounds fun enough for my 7 year old to join in on something he might not want to. LOL! I set all the cards out on the table and as I said right or left they would slap hands down on the correct mittens as fast as they could. Travis felt like he was playing on a game show and the hands are like a button to hit hard and fast. We laughed when we made a mistake. Each round they did correctly they would hand me that mitten so we had one less on the table. It isn't really a game because you have no winner but my children didn't seem to notice. LOL! They are having fun with it so I know they will want to do it again. I noticed Demi quickly learned her right hand from playing the game tonight but she doesn't seem to understand the other hand is her left. LOL! Second game I came up with was right and left hand mitten "twister". Demi tried to join in but she didn't understand that she should keep her hands and feet on the cards until I called out a new move to make. We all had fun and laughed. I know she will quickly get the idea if she watches her brother play another time or two.

Game three is a "treasure hunt". We lay the cards out and turn right and left following the pattern on the floor to find a treasure tonight was a small pack of m&m's hid at the end of the mitten trail.
Game 4 for right and left mittens looks like the treasure hunt but we march and call out the hands we find. Like left left to the left, right right lets go right, right right right again, left left it say left. Children like it when I do silly chants and lead the march.



Mitten kit #43
Sight word mittens.
Once Demi gets good with in and out I will add Up, down, on, and off. I will read the cards and then ask Demi to help me find a place to put them. I remember having so much fun with Travis playing games like this. With him I didn't use paper mittens I used plastic Easter eggs for the first game, but it is the same idea. Below is an example of how I will introduce them with a toy house. If the first mitten is up I will tell her it says up and let her put it someplace up. If/when we mess up we will giggle. I will be sure to make mistakes and show them to her when we play. Then she can fix my mitten that is in the wrong place.
If you are thinking you might like to do this but don't have a toy house or castle to play you can make one with a box. If you don't like that idea below is the same game only using cars.

Car on the mitten and mitten on a car.
Car off the mitten and mitten off the car.

Mitten in a car (this car opens up).
Car goes up and down a block ramp.

With Travis I also remember I used a lot of trains for doing things like this because he loved Trains. I used cars for the pictures above only because it was the first toy I saw. They are small so I can toss cars and cards all in a small bag and add them to our box of kits to play whenever we want.

A sight word game Travis LOVED playing with me was taking a sight word card set like the ones above and using our bodies and the furniture to go with it. He would call out a noun like the couch and then I would pick a card to use with it. If the card said IN I would have to try and climb IN the couch. Seeing mommy getting under the cushions on the sofa cracked him up. I would get UNDER or ON the table, pretend to climb UP the rug, and other silly things like that. He never did know he was learning he always thought it was just silly play. I will play this with Demi soon. I am getting excited about it now that I am remembering all the fun we had with this. Children don't need to read to play this game this is a game you can play with a baby to learn the words in and on. When I do this I will read the cards and maybe Demi will like it so much she might learn the words on the cards when we play together just from playing so much and I won't have to "teach" her. I will let you know how it goes.


Mitten kit #45
Mitten bowling.
Toss a snowball at the mittens.


I took a large soda pop box and cut out 10 rectangles
I used children's scissors to make a score line one inch from the bottom.

I made a fold on the line so they would stand up.
For me the way above is very quick so I picked that one but if you don't like making folds for the stands you could cut little strips and add a slit to stand them up (like the old paper dolls stands).Adding a strip with a staple and a bend also works (picture frame style).

I stapled mittens on the front and added a ball we had. You can make them with normal looking pins or any other thing you can think of. I put numbers on my pins for us to put back in number order but you could put words, letters, shapes, or other things on it them. For an older child you can put the hard to learn multiplication facts on the pins and only have him answer the ones he doesn't knock down. Put the answers on the back for him to check. I find with Travis games like this can make memory work fun and he doesn't notice that school can be hard.

Guess I am not the best bowler. I left 3 pins standing. At least I know it works. LOL!
Later tonight Travis took a roll of newsprint paper (it's like a roll of wrapping paper) and rolled it out to make a lane for his game. LOL! He drew a square at the end for all the pins to set inside of. I should have taken a picture but I didn't notice what he was doing. Before I noticed what was going on Demi drew on his paper and tore it some. After that Travis didn't want to play anymore.