Yet Another Version of "The Mitten"

As I have mentioned before, I often take elements that I like from different versions of a story and put them together in a version that I enjoy telling.  That is how I came up with "A Few Foolish Friends" and "The Clever One."  Several Flannel Friday participants have posted versions of "The Mitten."  My version of this classic story features animals that would be familiar to local children and has the ending from a similiar story in Glad Rags: Stories and Activities Featuring Clothes by Jan Irving and Robin Currie which in turn reminded me of Who Took the Farmer's Hat? by Joan Nodsett.  I told the following version at a recent Family Story Time Program featuring winter stories.

The Story:

One cold winter day, several children were playing in a snow-covered forest.  Soon the wind began to blow harder and harder so the children decided to leave the forest and return to their nice warm homes.  One little boy was in such a hurry to get home that he dropped a mitten and before he could pick it up, the wind blew it away. 

Squirrel happened by and saw the brightly colored mitten lying in the white snow.  It looked like a nice warm place to stay until the wind stopped blowing so she crawled inside the mitten.  Rabbit soon came along and saw the colorful mitten lying in the snow.  She too thought it would be a nice warm place to stay so she crawled inside the mitten.  It was getting dark when owl looked down from her tree and saw the brightly colored mitten.  She thought it would be a nice warm place to stay so she flew down and crawled into the mitten.  It was starting to get pretty crowded it that mitten!

Fox happened to be walking by when he saw the mitten and decided that he would crawl inside it to spend the night which is exactly what he did.  Not long after, raccoon came by grumbling about his cold, cold nose when he saw the mitten.  He decided it would not only keep his nose warm but the rest of him as well so he crawled inside the very crowded mitten.  Surely it could hold no more.  Well, bear was the next to come along.  Of course when he saw the mitten he decided it would be a nice warm place to sleep so he crawled inside that very, very crowded mitten and it still held together.  Last came a teeny, tiny mouse who was shivering from the cold.  Surely, a teeny, tiny mouse wouldn't split the mitten.  But as soon as that mouse crawled in, the mitten burst apart leaving brightly colored pieces all over the forest.  Fortunately there were enough burrows and caves and hollow trees in the forest for each animal to find shelter. 

All the animals were happy when spring came.  Bird was particularly proud of the nest she had made.  She was sure it was the most beautiful nest in the entire forest.  Indeed, it was very colorful and looked very much like a certain warm, brightly colored mitten.

The Props:

I made the mitten from two pieces of colorful scrap book paper from a craft store.  The pieces fastened together with Velcro which makes a nice ripping sound when pulled apart.  I traced and simplified most of the animals from templates provided by Jan Brett on her site.  The bird on her nest is loosely based on an illustration found in Glad Rags.

This week's Flannel Friday is hosted by Andrea of rovingfiddlehead kidlit.  For everything you ever wanted to know about Flannel Friday go here.