The Little Red Hen

We read the classic story, The Little Red Hen.

 

In the original story the Hen asks her friends, the cat, the duck and the pig to help her complete the steps in order to make a loaf of bread. Throughout the story they reply, "Not I" to all her requests for help. In the end, the hen finally asks her friends if they would like to eat the bread. When they all reply yes she tells them that since they did not help they do not get to have any of the bread. 
 

We then acted out the story using stick puppets to aid in their understanding of the book.

 

The children were able to compare the original story where the hen makes a loaf of bread on the farm versus a newer version of the story placed in an urban setting where the hen makes a pizza.

In the newer version there a a few noticable differences. For instance, there is a dog in the place of a pig and in the end of this story the hen does share the pizza. However, her friends end up doing the dishes when they are finished so that they help out and the moral of the story is still the same.

The children and I dicsussed issues of fairness and responsibility after reading the story. We also talked about the qualities we value in a person's character such as honesty, courtesy, kindness, willingness to work hard, fairness, loyalty and trustworthiness.

 
The puppets are now in our library area for the children to use on their own or in small groups during learning center time.



The children were also invited to use our reading eyes to better track the words in the book when reading on their own.