"The Mitten" - Distance Learning
- briannaduvall
- Feb 25, 2021
- 4 min read
I would say that wintertime is one of my favorite times of year in the music room, but let's be real...every time of year is my favorite time of year in the music room! But...there really is something special about wintertime. It's such a magical time of year filled with tons of excitement for kids of all ages!
One of my favorite lessons for winter is based off of Jan Brett's classic story - The Mitten. This story is loved by teachers of all content areas, especially music teachers! The opportunities for creativity are endless with this story. My first experience with The Mitten was when I was student teaching. My cooperating teacher was inspired to turn the story into a beautiful program for her second graders...a route many music teachers take! However, during a pandemic, a grade level program isn't exactly an option.
I absolutely adore this story and my students do, too, so I couldn't bring myself to simply skip it this year. So I did what every teacher has done with their favorite lessons this past year...I adapted it and I turned it into a themed lesson for my primary aged students.
I like to focus on singing with this story (although there are MANY options for focusing on rhythm), so for my class it's important to start with a vocal warm up. I created a set of animated visuals for my students to use for vocal explorations. My classes are currently 100% virtual, so I like to model the first two or so explorations and have the students sing them on their own while muted to avoid the lag. After we do a few together, I like to give my students a moment of individual practice for each of the explorations that follow. After they've had a moment to practice on their own, I take volunteers and let students unmute to lead the class in an exploration. My students LOVE this! If you are teaching in person, you could very easily have students take turns being the leader. They could come to the board and point to the path of the exploration while they model the path with their voices. My students could honestly spend the entire class taking turns with vocal explorations - they really enjoy singing them!
After we warm our voices up with the vocal explorations, we echo sing 4 solfege exercises - each is a measure from The Farmer in the Dell. This covers low sol, do, re, mi, sol, and la. I like to allow my students 30 seconds to find something they can use as a microphone. I've found that some of my students really look forward to this, and many of them have gotten actual microphones to use at home! You could also ask your students to grab an invisible microphone. I tell my students that when the microphone is pointing towards me, it's my turn. When I point it towards them, it's their turn. I've found that even my most timid of students are more willing to sing now that they have a fun prop to use!
At last, we arrive at the story. This Ukrainian folktale is the story of Nicki, a little boy who really wanted white gloves although his Baba was afraid he'd lose them in the snow. Turns out, Baba knows best! Nicki lost one of his mittens in the snow, but it sure did make a nice shelter for each of the little (and not so little) critters that found it! As we read the story, we sing a verse (to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell) for each animal that makes its way into the mitten. Generally, I scan all of my storybooks and I put them into Google Slides to make it easier for my students to see the story while I read. I also do this for in-person teaching - instead of reading from the small storybook, I project it to the board. Because I do this, I just insert a slide for each verse in between the pages of the story for the students to read while they sing.
With online learners, it's hard to provide opportunities for students to sing off of mute. There are eight animals (and a verse for the mitten), so you could divide your class list by 9 and just have a few kids unmute at a time so each kid can sing one verse off of mute. My students love this because it's not so overwhelming, and I love it because I get to hear everyone sing!
After we get through the story, I like to get the students up for a little bit of movement. They've been sitting still for a while now, so it's time to get some wiggles out. I made a short movement break video that I share with the students at this point.
Lastly, I do like to do a little bit of rhythm practice. There are so many ways that you can practice rhythm with this story. I personally made a rhythm play along video that I use with my students. I find that this is easiest to share with virtual learners while still being able to clap along/count aloud with the kids. I chose to only focus on quarter notes and eighth notes, and each rhythm repeats 4 times to allow students a chance to be really confident with each rhythm!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read about my ideas for using The Mitten in a distance learning environment! I hope that this has given you some ideas for ways to incorporate this story in your own music room. If you already use this story, I'd love it if you would share how you teach it to your students!
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