Mitten Matching Bulletin Board

Interactive bulletin boards are a terrific way to utilize vertical space and include additional learning opportunities for our students. If you need a Winter Bulletin Board for your classroom, try this cute mitten match activity:

Brrr!  When the temperature drops, keep warm with this interactive Mitten Match Winter Bulletin Board! So much more than just a classroom decoration, this is a versatile, vertical, very awesome learning center. This amazing bulletin board helps students to master matching, letter or number identification, and early writing skills.

Supplies:

• Yarn or clothesline
• Clothespins (the pinchy kind!)
• Mitten Cut-Outs, and recording sheets (Templates HERE!)
• Clipboards
• Markers, crayons, or pencils

Setting Up:

First, put up some background paper.  String three lengths of the yard horizontally from one end to the other, leaving plenty of space in between.  Bulletin board border can be used to hide the ends of the strings if desired.

Next, prepare each clothespin by labeling it with a letter.  It can be as simple as sharpie marker, or you can hot glue wooden letters to the clothespins.  At Play to Learn, we color coordinated the letters with the mittens!

Finally, invite your students to play and learn!

So much to learn!

Students practice early literacy skills by:

• Matching the clothespin to the letter
• putting the letters in order
• reading the letters to discover which ones may be missing.

Early writing skills can be enriched by providing clipboards with copies of the mitten recording sheet and writing utensils.

Variations:

This can be used many ways depending on your classroom needs!  Looking for more advanced skills?  Provide mittens with lowercase letters, switch to numbers or even high-frequency words!  Challenge the students to a game of “what letters are missing?” For a really difficult challenge, try “stealing” the letters from one student’s name and see if your “letter detectives” can solve the mystery!

Print the mitten templates on colorful paper or cardstock. This set also includes differentiated recording sheets for upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and blank mittens.