Grant Elementary’s Jennifer Frampton recently read The Mitten to her kindergarten class. This classic Ukrainian fairy tale follows a boy who loses a mitten that his mother knitted for him in the forest. One by one, different animals climbed inside to keep warm for the Winter until the mitten was full. 

Mrs. Frampton used MEF Grant funding to purchase paint brushes, mitten paper, colored pencils, and a tracer kit to create more interactive storytelling for The Mitten and other stories. Once they paint their mittens, students will place one on a collective poster and take the other home.

Integrated learning, including a weave of literature and art in this example, helps children knit different mental interpretations of stories and opens their minds to different possibilities for themselves.