Mitten Math

As we continued with our journey through The Mitten, we did a little activity I like to call "Mitten Math". This activity integrates math and language arts by asking the students math questions related to the story.

First students we asked to estimate how many cubes long they thought their mitten was.This was a great introduction to non-standard measurement, which we will be studying later on in the year.

The students were placed in partners pairs with one threesome and were asked to estimate how  long they thought their mitten was and write that down on their recording sheet. This activity not only asked students to remember what the word estimate means and how to do it (we discussed it very  briefly at the beginning of the year so this was a great way for us to revisit and review!), but also asked students to work together in a cooperative group.

After writing down their estimate, the groups worked together to measure their mitten. Once they found out how long their mitten really was, they wrote that number down as the actual amount on their recording sheet. 

Finally, the students were asked to decide if their estimate was more, less, or equal to the actual number. This reviewed more and less, which were taught earlier in the year.

Next, the students were asked to estimate how many cubes their mitten would hold. We related this to the story by talking about all the things that the mitten in the story held and brainstorming if we thought "holding" meant just as many as would fit or cramming as many as you could. We, of course, decided it meant you could cram as many as you could- after all that is what happened in the story!

The partner pairs took turns adding cubes to their mitten and counted together how many would fit inside. After the students fit as many in as they could, they again wrote down their actual number and compared it to their estimate. 

This activity turned out to be a great ending to our study on the mitten. The students really enjoyed getting to fill up their mittens and try to see how many they could fit in at once. This was also a great activity because it incorporated so many different standards- the students were using non-standard measurement, estimation, and number sense all at once! This activity helped to reinforce concepts we have already discussed in class, while giving a nice intro to concepts yet to come.