Fun Winter Books
A wordless book, The Snowman is excellent for working on interpretation and language development. Have the child look at the pics and tell what they think is happening. Prompt them to notice details in the pictures and assist them in processing the clues to arrive at a logical narrative. This is a great activity for developing narratives, working on verbal expression skills, and improving grammar and written language. This task is also excellent for the child with weak processing or pragmatic language skills. Social skills can be addressed by discussing how the characters may be feeling, why they feel this way, and how we come to those conclusions based on what we see or know.
The Mitten is a classic story about a lost glove and the forest animals who find shelter there. This story lends itself to sequencing tasks and story retelling. There is also lots of advanced vocabulary to be learned in this version of the story. Jan Brett's website
http://www.janbrett.com/search_results.htm?cx=003689230839966827781%3A9myke-i4ega&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=the+mitten&sa=Search+janbrett.com
includes many free activities. You can add all types of activities depending on your goals: matching mittens (real one, wallpaper/scapbook paper cutouts, or pencil paper tasks with worksheets), learning about the different kinds of animals, or creating your own story based on another article of clothing. The Hat is an example of expanding an idea from one story to another.
Cooking Activities
"Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that
when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the
clarity, and the emotions to affect other people."
Jim Rohn
