Today is our "J is for Jacket" day and we started right off with this very fun book that is built on the same premise as "The House That Jack Built".
Our Reading Literacy activity for J is based around this wonderful story by Shirley Neitzel called, "The Jacket I Wear in the Snow".
Here's a YouTube read aloud:
My kids were chuckling by the last sing song run through of all the clothes that the boy has to put on. Then, we moved to the table where Little Miss was more than ready to color our little activity page.
I decided to pull out my special color pencils for this.
Teaching Tip: I don't keep all the possibilities for coloring at my children's fingertips at this age. I vary it by some days pulling out the crayons, some days the paints, some days the colored pencils and some days the markers. This keeps the possibilities fun and interesting when they might otherwise grow to be "old hat". As my kids get older, they can always ask for the coloring utensil that intrigues their fancy. And by that time, they will have had quite a bit of experience in each.
By the way, in this activity, I attempted to create a semi-androgynous child who could be either boy or girl, depending on the perspective of the child. I asked Little Miss if the character was a boy or girl and she told me confidently, "It's a girl!" so, there you have it.
This activity really began to be fun, when she realized that she would be dressing the child to go out in the snow. At first, I cut the pieces out roughly to let her attempt the more detailed cutting. But there are too many small niches and edges on these little pieces, so Mommy gently put her hand over the top of Little Miss's on the scissors...
...and helped. She was still pushing the scissors in and out, while I guided the blades around those outside. Otherwise, she would have gotten frustrated and the fun would have been over. As it was, the fun was just beginning.
Little Miss hasn't played with paper dolls before. She has some Melissa & Doug wooden dolls though, so she was prepared for this, no problem.
As she began to dress her little girl character for the snow, I heard her singing to herself, "I did it, I did it, I did it!"
As she put the scarf on, the giggles began. This is too much fun. She is having a blast.
So much so, that now she is trying the paper doll's snow hat on her own little head.
Yes, we have a finished little paper girl, complete with a pom pom added to the top of the snow hat (not necessary, but embellishments are always fun!).
Now, I pulled out the letter J matching cards she completed earlier in our Letter J week, and asked her to find me the Jacket picture. Obviously, she found it. :)
And then she decided the best way to finish off her learning assignment, was to take off her princess dress and put on her own snow-clothes, including her Jacket, for a little snow fun. I couldn't have planned that better, myself!
Another follow up activity for older children that we offer in our packet is this sentence building activity:
We didn't do that one, but when Little Miss and her brother came back inside, we finished off the day's learning with a book that every child should have the fun of reading after playing in the snow:
All of the activities seen in the post are available in our store. If you are interested in just the Reading Literacy activity seen here, we have that separated into our "The Jacket I Wear in the Snow Reading Literacy Packet".
For more activities for letter J (including this one!), you can check out our complete Letter of the Week packet for J.
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