The story The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is the basis for several activities for young children. One activity that can be done before the story is graphing. Kids can be given cotton balls and place them on poster paper in one of two columns to indicate if they have played in the snow, made snow balls or made snow angels. The kids can then practice reading the graph to see if more people have done one activity than the other.
After the story students can do matching activities of pictures of the imprints that would be left by the feet of different animals and pictures of the animals.
While thinking about the melting snowball, kids can be given pictures to organize into things that melt and those that don't melt.
Jan Brett's classic story, The Mitten, is great for teaching kids about different animals and concepts like symmetry. Before reading the story, just going through the book and showing the students pictures can give them an opportunity to activate prior learning and name all of the animals. Through viewing the pictures the students also have a chance to predict what might happen in the story.
After reading the story, the students can work on making their own mittens. Since mittens come in pairs, they have to color them so that they match. Have students cut out and decorate their own mittens using classroom supplies like colored pencils, glitter, piping or other materials.
The story of the three little kittens who lost their mittens is perfect for a winter lesson.
Before reading the story the kids can share their experiences having lost something and found something. They can discuss the feelings that go with both events.
There can also be some pre-reading done by looking at the pictures. Students try to predict when the kittens had lost their mittens and when they had found them based on the emotions that the kittens were showing. The first reading of the story can be straight through, but students can be echo readers for the lines where the mother cat or kittens speak. After reading, little kitten puppets can be made using Popsicle sticks and cartoon kitten faces. One face should be happy and the other crying. The story can be re-read and the students summarize what happened. They should be prompted about what was said. Students can then act out the story using their stick puppets. Small groups of four can put on their own performances together.
This last activity is one of coloring and creativity. Students can be given worksheets with outlined shapes of a sweater, a dinner plate, a pair of mittens or other objects. They can color them in based on what their favorite winter item looks like or what they wish they looked like. Then, all the images can be put together to make a little book.