About this book
Overview
Snowballs, by Lois Ehlert, is a fun book with many possibilities for extension activities. This activity finds your students collecting mittens for a graphing activity, and then donating them to a local organization to benefit children in need.
Our local newspaper, The Recorder, sponsors a program to "warm the children." You can learn more about it at www.warmthechildren.org. Students enjoy seeing the collection of colorful mittens, and enjoy even more donating the mittens to children in need.
Objective
Students will "collect, sort, organize, and draw conclusions about data using concrete objects, pictures, numbers, and graphs." --Massachusetts Mathematics Curriculum Framework
Materials
- Snowballs by Lois Ehlert
- pairs of new children's mittens
Gather the following materials for your graph:
- new shower curtain liner
- colored masking tape
Set Up and Prepare
You may want to send home a letter asking for the donation of new mittens. If you really want to make an impact, ask your principal if your request can go into the school newsletter, or team up with another class to collect mittens.
There may be some people in your community who would be willing to knit mittens if asked. See if your local newspaper will cover your project. The additional press is sure to help your cause.
Spread out the curtain liner and use the tape to create a large grid. The liner will function as a large piece of graph paper. Be certain the squares are big enough to fit an object like a shoe or mitten.
Directions
Spread out the shower curtain graph and gather students in a semi-circle. Have students take turns placing their mittens on the graph, sorting by: A) number of stripes, B) color, C) size, and D) design.
Lesson Extensions
Have students create corresponding construction paper mittens to use in their own graph. Or use the paper mittens for a patterning activity.
Use a large sheet of graph paper to record and label one of the student-generated graphs.
For older students, have them use graph paper to create graphs based on their mittens.
Related Resources
Follow a reading of Lois Ehlert's book by fishing for numbers in this counting activity. This lesson is suitable for grades K-1.
Students enjoy learning about the various birds in Feathers for Lunch, and making connections to birds in their own communities. Students also enjoy imitating the various bird calls featured in the book.
Lois Ehlert has done it again with Pie in the Sky. Her use of colored paper and texture combined with informational text keeps students coming back for more. Students love counting out the bright red cherries to glue in their books.
I include In My World in a Lois Ehlert author study, and use it on its own to practice "ing" as a word ending. Students become enthusiastic when they make the connection that they can add "ing" to a word to change it.
Lois Ehlert's illustrations are visually pleasing to children, and Cuckoo is no exception. The bright colors and animals make Cuckoo irresistable. Students enjoying creating their own patterns on the bird wings.
These fun learning activities about trees incorporate language arts, math, and science.
- Subjects:Charts and Graphs, Counting and Numbers, Literature, Literature Appreciation, Data Analysis, Manipulatives, Math through Literature, Winter Themes
- Duration:35 Mins
