Aunt Maud S Mittens

Aunt Maud’s Mittens

Summary: Luke’s Aunt is coming for a visit, and his mom insists that he wear the red rabbit mittens his aunt gave him. Unfortunately, Luke has given away the mittens. Luke’s attempts to locate the mittens and get them back form the basis for this entertaining story.

Reading Strategies:  retelling/summarizing  making inferences  sequencing

Before Reading: [making connections to self]  Ask students how many of them wear mittens.  Have them describe their mittens to the group.  Invite them to share what they like or don’t like about their mittens.  Ask them if any of them ever had a pair of mittens that they really did not like to wear.  Invite them to tell why.  Point out that what one person dislikes, another person may like.

Predicting:  Show them the front and back cover and invite them to discuss what they think the book will be about.  Next, read the text on the back cover, and ask them what they think rabbit mittens are.  Turn to the title page and show the illustration of Luke wearing the mittens.  Confirm that rabbit mittens are mittens decorated to look like rabbits.  Ask them how they think Luke is feeling about his rabbit mittens in the picture.  What are the clues to his feelings?  Invite students to predict what they think might have happened to Luke’s rabbit mittens. Picture Walk:  Do a picture walk of the book up to page 13, pointing out characters in the story and the steps Luke takes to find his mittens. Read Aloud: [twice]  Before reading aloud ask the students to think about the following questions while you read.  Why does Luke need to find his mittens?  How does Luke feel about these mittens?  What tells you how Luke is feeling? After Reading:

 Have one or two children describe orally what happened to in the story.  Ask them to trace what happened to the mittens as the story went on.  Invite students to discuss their thoughts about how Luke was feeling.  How was he feeling at each stop along the way to finding the mittens?  What are some clues to his feelings?  How did Luke feel about finding the mittens?  How did he feel when he put on the wet, soggy mittens?  What tells you how he felt?

Follow-up Sequencing Activity- Create a Story Map

 Invite students to recall the sequence of events in the story.  Have the students work in partners to put the sentence strips in order…allow them to use the book.  Once all pairs have finished have them discuss and agree on an order.  Then have them create a map showing where the mittens went after Luke received them from Aunt Maud.  Suggest that they use footprints to show where Luke travelled.  When they are finished, have them retell the story with a partner.

Dylan’s mom explained that someone in the pink and grey house had borrowed the mittens.

Mom tells Luke to wear the red rabbit mittens Aunt Maud gave him.

The next morning the girl in the pink and grey house said she had used the mittens on a snowman.

Luke and Dylan looked for the mittens in Dylan’s house, but could not find them.

Aunt Maud was happy to see Luke was wearing the mittens.

A dog came along and dropped the frozen mittens at Luke’s feet.

Aunt Maud is coming over tomorrow.

Luke and Dylan looked in the snow below the snowman for the mittens.

Luke couldn’t wear the mittens because he had given them to Dylan’s little sister.

The mittens were not on the snowman.