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One of my favorite stories to use for a kindergarten thematic unit is “The Little Red Hen.” There are so many fun ways to incorporate this story into math and literacy practice! In this post, I’m sharing my favorite Little Red Hen activities for kindergarten. You’ll be able to use these activities to put together a unit study that your students will love!
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The activities shown below have options available for two different versions of “The Little Red Hen.” You can choose between the version written by Lucinda McQueen (when the hen makes bread) and the version written by Paul Galdone (when the hen makes a cake). To make the most of these activities, you’ll also want to read “The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza)” by Philemon Sturges.
The story of the little red hen is a great way to help students practice making predictions. You can stop the story right before the end to discuss whether or not the hen will share the food she made. Students can then complete this lift-the-flap writing activity to record their predictions and what actually happened.
As you read and re-read the story together as a class, you can focus on a different story element each time. As you discuss characters, setting, problem, and solution, each student can complete a corresponding page in their own story elements book.
After discussing the sequence of events in the story, students can complete this adorable 3D little red hen craft! The hen’s apron folds to show what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. These crafts look adorable perched on bookshelves and windowsills!
Your students can also practice sequencing after reading “The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza)” together as a class. They will love creating this fun foldable pizza that puts the story events in the correct order.
With pizza on everyone’s minds, students can also think about the sequence of making a pizza. As you talk about each step, you can create an anchor chart together as a class. Then students can create their own flip books!
After students have had a chance to practice sequencing, they will be ready to retell the story!
This mat is a fun support for students to use to act out the story as they retell it. They will be excited to take it home to show their families!
The hen is a great cook and it’s fun to think about what she will bake next. Students can create their own lift-a-flap page for a class book that shows what they think the hen will bake.
Your students will love practicing sight words with a fun pizza twist! Students will take turns choosing pepperoni cards from a bag.
If they can read the word on the card, they will add it to their pizza. Students will need to watch out for the hen’s friends, who will take all of the pepperonis from their pizza!
After reading two versions of The Little Red Hen, students will be able to compare the two stories.
They can create this unique story comparison craftivity! The hen craft opens to show the food that the hen made in each story. Each of those flaps can be lifted to reveal details from the corresponding story.
It’s also a great opportunity for students to choose their favorite story! After they decide, they can create a writing craftivity that explains why that version of the story was their favorite.
Students can put themselves in the hen’s shoes and decide if they would share the food they made. It’s always fun to read what they’ve written!
Finally, your students can write about the lesson that they learned from reading “The Little Red Hen.” They can also draw an illustration to go with their writing.
You can also incorporate math practice into your discussion of whether or not students would share if they were the hen. Your students can help you put together a class graph with their votes.
Then students can record and interpret the data on their own worksheets. This is great graphing practice!
Next, your students can practice identifying and counting shapes by creating their own pizzas! After putting together their pizzas, students will count and tally the different shapes that they used.
You can bring some Little Red Hen fun to counting practice with these fun activities! First, your students will love to reveal a mystery picture as they color each box based on the numbers they have counted.
Your students can also play a fun game that gives them plenty of counting practice! As students move around the game board, they will land on a pizza pan with a number.
Then, students will put a marker on a pizza that has the same number of pepperoni. The game continues until a student has four markers in a row!
Another fun math game that your students will love is this comparing numbers game! Two students will each flip over a card and decide which number is larger.
The partner with the larger number will move their game piece forward on the game board. The game continues until one partner makes it all the way around the board.
All of the activities shown above (and more!) can be found in one easy-to-download resource. You’ll also find a unit-at-a-glance PDF with a suggested sequence for using these activities in a ten-day unit. If you’d like to take a closer look at this resource, you can find it in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or on TPT.
Be sure to save this post if you’d like to come back to it later. Just add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find this post when you’re trying to plan a Little Red Hen thematic unit. If you enjoy basing your thematic units on stories, be sure to check out these Jack and the Beanstalk activities!
These alphabet books will have students dive deep into learning about each letter of the alphabet while eager to see what activity they get to complete next!
