It’s mid winter, the time of year when every household has a small pile of mittens and gloves that are missing their other half! It’s almost always the favorite ones that have been lost because those are the ones that get worn the most. It would be a shame to throw them away, so here is a whole day or a few hours of activity that will put them to good use. Plus it is fun, creative and educational for everyone.
Even though it still looks and feels like winter, the longer, sunny days are a signal to the animals that spring is just around the corner. The chickadees have started singing their spring songs, the foxes and wolves are preparing dens for the soon-to-be born young ones and the owls are sitting on their eggs by early March. It is a busy time for most of the boreal critters!
To see what the animals have been up to, take a hike by snowshoe out to a place in the woods where few or no people have been and look around for different tracks in the snow. Take along an animal track book and see how many you can identify. You will most likely see fox, mouse, deer, a variety of different birds and perhaps moose and wolf if you are lucky. I recently had the good fortune of spotting the wing prints of an owl as it swooped down to the ground to capture a mouse that had been tunneling under the snow. The feather marks were beautiful!
After the hike and a cup of hot chocolate, gather together the unmatched mittens and gloves, some white glue, a needle and thread, scissors, fabric scraps, yarn, buttons, felt, pipe cleaners and anything else you have around the house that could be used to decorate puppets. Hot glue guns work well, but make sure there is adult supervision if used with younger children.
Cut the fingers off the gloves and turn them into finger puppets by decorating them into some of the animals you just saw on the hike. Mittens can be used whole and turned into larger hand puppets or cut up in different ways for smaller puppets. Use the pictures in the track book to help you with the details but don’t be afraid to be creative by exaggerating the details and using lots of colors and funny objects for your puppets.
Make up a story and have a puppet show telling all in the audience everything you have learned about the animals in the forest.
Happy winter!
Kelly Dupre of Grand Marais is an artist, children’s
author, and educator with over 20 years
teaching experience with all age groups in a
variety of settings. The activities in this oncea
month column are spin-offs and combinations
of ideas she has used and learned from
teachers, parents, kids, books, and workshops.
Only some of the activities has she actually
thought of herself!
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