Simple Mitten Craft

It’s not that cold outside, but we are talking about warm clothes that we wear, and today we’re decorating paper mittens! 

I freehanded some simple mitten shapes beforehand, cut them out, and glued them to white construction paper. The kiddos got to choose from foam rectangles (our shape of the month), craft jewels (with stickies on the back), and sequins (who doesn’t love sequins?!) to place anywhere on their mittens.

What a fine motor workout! All of them were very excited to touch and pick up the colorful shiny objects! Some of them ran their fingers through the sequins, just for the feel of it.

I had to help with putting glue on the backs (or taking the sticky-backs off the jewels),  and we’re just learning to place the glue side down on the paper, rather than letting it stick up and show. Glue on the hands is also a very interesting feeling.

We did this one at a time so I could supervise and make sure none of my 22-28-month-olds stuck the small pieces in their mouths. They have gotten a lot better at this since we’ve made our color bottles (more on that coming soon) every month. One of the students pointed at the sequins, looked at me, shook her head, and said, “I can’t eat it.”

It’s always interesting to observe where the children place each decoration. Sometimes they are all over the place, and sometimes there’s a pattern. Some things are stuck very close together, some things are mirrored in both mittens, and some places become monochromatic.

All in all, we enjoyed this activity. It went quickly and was pretty easy to make. 

After it’s decorated, glue on a cotton ball (stretched out) to the bottom of each mitten. I wrote, “Thank You, God, for warm clothes to wear” at the top.

If we had had more time I might have spread this out between 2 days, letting them color the mittens with crayons or paint them with watercolors before gluing the decorations on. But I think they turned out pretty cute.