Sewing with The Mitten

 What fun we had at Toddler Sewing Club last week!  We stitched up these adorable mittens inspired by Jan Brett's The Mitten, a winter favorite!

So much is going into this simple activity.  The kids are learning basic sewing which strengthens fine motor and focus skills, animal and color recognition, sequencing, and story re-telling!  Whew!

Materials are simple  - we used low-loft batting for the mitten, plastic needles, and lacing strings.  The Mitten templates came straight from Jan Brett's awesome website.  I copied the animal template onto cardstock.

 First, we read the book to the group.  We had several copies on hand for repeated readings and sequencing.

 Next, we sewed up the mittens.  I had them ready to go with a needle and thread attached to a set.  The plastic needles slide right through the batting and the kids really feel like they are sewing fabric.

 First time sewers had a little support from parents.

 Next, the kids colored the animals.  I ran them off on cardstock then cut them out and punched a few holes into each animal.  Older kids could easily do this step themselves.

 Lacing the animals together was a lot of fun.  Some kids really focused on the order of the animals from the story, while others just wanted to put them together.  If you are focusing on sequencing, it would be easy to number the animals before copying them.

Time to put the animals into the mitten!

As a goodbye, we gave each sewer a pair of small mittens of their own to take home.  They were so excited!

I'm sure there will lots of retelling of The Mitten this winter!