Winter Clothing Storytime

 In the midwest, you definitely need a some cold weather clothing this time of year!  Believe it or not, winter clothing makes a great storytime theme too!  Kids love to play dress up, and anything that makes putting on layers of winter clothing articles FUN is a help to parents as well as enjoyable for the kids. A few books I used for the storytime theme are:


The Mitten by Jan Brett.  A wonderful story and she has a great webpage to support her books as well (link below).  Best read one-on-one so that your child can see all the details in the illustrations, but works well with a large group too.

Under my Hood I have a Hat by Karla Kuskin.  This is a great introductory story for toddlers talking about cold weather clothing in a fun, lighthearted way.  The term "muffler" is used for "scarf", so that might need a bit of explaining, but it's worth it!

Froggy Gets Dressed  by Jonathan London.  Most young children LOVE Froggy! Froggy plays soccer, plays t-ball and even gets his first kiss.  There are numerous books, including Froggy Gets Dressed where Froggy wants to get out and play in the snow instead of sleep, but he keeps forgetting some item of clothing.  Definite hit since you get to say the word "underwear" - that always is good for some giggles.

Smitten by David Gordon.  Cute story about a lost sock and a missing mitten who find each other and decide that even though they do not match, they make a great pair.

A Mountain of Mittens by Lynn Plourde.  If you have a school age child and live in a cold climate, then you know mittens go missing - frequently!  This fun story takes an amusing look at loss mittens that will surely get some knowing chuckles from older kids.

For a craft, I used the mitten illustration found on Jan Brett's website:  http://www.janbrett.com/put_the_animals_in_the_mitten.htm.  Now, I thought the adorable animals included in her craft might be a bit too much for the preschoolers, so I did not print them off.  That was a mistake!!!  After hearing the story, the children wanted animals on their mittens!  Thankfully we had a copier near by and animals were made available for them to take home and color.  To decorate the mittens, I simply laid out various craft supplies and let the kids go.   They made some pretty awesome mittens!  Here are a few of them:

One last idea:  At home with your child, pull out a variety of winter clothing items:  hats, gloves, snowpants, mittens, scarves, coats, boots.  It doesn't matter if they are child size or not!  Simply get the items out and play dress up.  Let your child put the items on you for a change!  Could be a fun 1/2 hour spent with your child :)