Mitten Paper

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Coming up with fun occupational therapy activities for the winter months can be tricky, but this winter paper contains a whole winter theme making activity planning easy. This can be a dark and dreary time for many.  Take this time to create amazing lesson plans for your learners!  Add this activity to your winter occupational therapy ideas.

Today’s free downloadable PDF, Mitten Paper – Color and Find Modified Paper, will be a great addition to your winter themed lesson plan.  

mitten paper

MITTEN PAPER

The Mitten Paper printable packet is simple in design, yet provides countless activities and skill building opportunities.  Did you get a chance to read (Amazon affiliate link) The Mitten by Jan Brett?  This story, featuring one amazing mitten, and a forest full of animals, is a great starting point to a great treatment plan. 

“When Nicki drops his white mitten in the snow, he goes on without realizing that it is missing.

One by one, woodland animals find it and crawl in; first, a curious mole, then a rabbit, a badger and others, each one larger than the last. Finally, a big brown bear is followed in by a tiny brown mouse and what happens next makes for a wonderfully funny finish.”

Many students, who already dread writing, have difficulty coming up with stories from their imagination.  Writing prompts can help students start their stories.  Add a story like The Mitten to this writing activity and hopefully the ideas will come easier.  What kind of prompts could you write from this story?  

Upcoming posts to the OT Toolbox are going to be featuring writing prompt ideas for each month and season.  Keep following social media, and check your inbox to keep track of these posts.

HOW TO USE THE MITTEN PAPER WORKSHEETS

Writing prompts and handwriting are not the only ways to use these cute Mitten Paper Color and Find Worksheets.  

  • Test your learner’s visual perceptual skills by having them find all of the matching items, and circle or color them.  Learners can scan for multiple items at once, or one at a time.  Dot markers would be a great tool for young learners to stamp as they find the hidden mittens. 
  • Learners can count how many mittens they find of each variety, or the total number of mittens, then write the number and key words on the lined paper (example: 4 snowflake mittens).
  • Create a graph of all the mittens found.  A pie chart, bar graph, or line graph would be a great way to add STEM to this activity.  Learners can cut out mittens to glue onto their graph, or use numbers.
  • Use the pages to practice sight or spelling words
  • Create a winter journal using the writing pages
  • Three different types of paper to use with levels of learners
  • Make this part of a larger lesson plan including gross motor, sensory, social, executive function, or other fine motor skills
  • Write a report about mittens, types of mittens, the history of mittens, different memories or stories about mittens
  • Make a gross motor game of running around collecting matching pairs of mittens
  • Practice sorting with real mittens
  • Work on self help skills by practicing donning mittens
  • Do challenges while wearing mittens
  • The list of possibilities is virtually endless.  Build onto your lesson plan each year, fine tuning what works and what was not as fun as you had imagined

SKILLS ADDRESSED USING THE MITTEN PAPER ACTIVITY WORKSHEETS

  • Kinesthetic awareness – learning by doing
  • Hand strength and dexterity – staying on the lines builds hand muscles and develops muscle control
  • Visual motor skills –Combining what is seen visually and what is written motorically.  This takes coordination to be able to translate information from visual input to motor output. Coloring, drawing, counting, cutting, and tracing are some visual motor skills.
  • Eye-hand coordination
  • Pasting using glue stick or drippy glue with accuracy
  • Visual Perception – Developing figure ground to see where one item starts and finishes, discrimination to pick out slight differences, scanning to find all answers, and form constancy to determine an object is the same if it is smaller or turned.
  • Sequencing – Will your learner scan in a haphazard pattern all over the page, or be more methodical?  
  • Proprioception – pressure on paper, grip on pencil
  • Social/Executive Function – Following directions, turn taking, task completion, orienting to details, neatness, multi-tasking, attending to task, and impulse control can be addressed using this Warm Winter Clothing Printable PDF.
  • Handwriting: Letter formation – correctly forming the letters top to bottom. Letter sizing – correctly fitting the letters into the size boxes. Spacing, line placement, directionality, and spelling are also addressed
  • Fine motor strengthening, hand development, arch development, separating sides of the hand, and grasping pattern
  • Bilateral coordination – remembering to use their “helper hand” to hold the paper while writing.  Using one hand for a dominant hand instead of switching back and forth is encouraged once a child is in grade school or demonstrates a significant strength in one or the other
  • Executive function, following directions, attention, attention to detail, focus, sequencing, planning, task completion, compliance, behavior, and work tolerance are all important skills to learn

Remember, you can address all of these skills at once, or focus on one or two.  Some of the skills above will be addressed without your conscious knowledge, while other skills will be directly attended to.

MORE WINTER RESOURCES

If winter has you in a slump, and it takes all you have just to get out of bed, the OT Toolbox has you covered with premade lesson plans and activities.  The hard part is executing and documenting your treatment, let the OT Toolbox resources make planning a snap.

While it is no secret that I hate winter, I do like fun lesson plans to get me through it.  

Free Mitten Paper Printable

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    Victoria Wood, OTR/L is a contributor to The OT Toolbox and has been providing Occupational Therapy treatment in pediatrics for more than 25 years. She has practiced in hospital settings (inpatient, outpatient, NICU, PICU), school systems, and outpatient clinics in several states. She has treated hundreds of children with various sensory processing dysfunction in the areas of behavior, gross/fine motor skills, social skills and self-care. Ms. Wood has also been a featured speaker at seminars, webinars, and school staff development training. She is the author of Seeing your Home and Community with Sensory Eyes.

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