The Mitten Tot Bag

Finally, I have a new literature based tot bag! This one has been in the works for months.  A new tot bag based on The Mitten by Jan Brett. The Mitten is about a young boy, Nicki, who asks his Grandma to make white mittens. She is hesitant because white mittens can get easily lost in the snow. Nicki does lose one and it becomes a temporary home to several animals. Let me tell you about my tot bag.

First, I made the animal characters in the story. I rarely ever sew without a pattern and I searched high and low for a pattern for the animals. But I could not find anything to make my life easier. So I used the clipart from KPM Doodles as my pattern for our softies. They came out cute and I am happy with them.

Then I had to create a mitten for the animals to fit but when I considered felt, I figured that it would be too unforgiving when the tot tries to fit the animals in. So I made a mitten shaped drawstring bag. This was hastily hand drawn and sewn using knit fabric that I had left-over from another project. All of the animals easily fit into the bag for storage. The animals will be used for retelling the story and such. We will probably do a hide-n-seek game where the tot has to find the animals. Also, a game where the tot has to toss the animal onto the mitten could be played.

Next, I added some mittens that I cut from felt that I had. I used every color of the rainbow and added pink for my girl. This is a two-fold game. Since I am working on colors with the tot, we will play where is the snowball? I will hide the snowball under a mitten and we will use our color words to find it. Secondly, the mittens will be used for a practical life application. Kaleb will hang them on a clothesline with clothespins (fine motor practice). He can also match them as well. The idea for the mitten game came from Kiwi Crate.

Kaleb loves magnetic activities, so I could not disappoint. After much searching, I could not find a simple mitten 2 part puzzle for the tot bag. So I created my own using clip art from My Cute Graphics. Her graphics are so cute and they are free! If you would like the pdf file, click here.

Next, I enlarged mitten clipart and made a sewing card for more fine motor practice. I could not help myself but I had to print and laminate the characters for the book. These are adorable and can be used on our felt board. I will also make some games to go with them. I may add them to our salt tray and have the tot uncover them with a paintbrush.

I added some mittens for practical life - teaching the tot to put on his mittens. They can also be used for matching. I totally love the sparkly white mittens that my mom made for J. We will have fun with these. One game will be to place a small item inside and have the tot guess what it is just by feeling the mitten.

I will be adding sparkle white play dough as soon as I make it. The recipe comes from My Small Potatoes. We will be working on some simple mitten art projects as well as making mitten cookies! I have a fun tot week planned (sprinkled with kindergarten activities), please come back and see my tot bag in action.