The Three Little Pigs

This week we have been reading The Three Little Pigs. First thing to do is read the story so that they are familiar with it. If you do not have the story then watch this.

There is so much repetitive language, “I will huff and puff and blow your house down” which helps with the language patterns and learning the story by heart. Listed below there are: writing, art, role play, maths and fine motor skills activities.

Activities

Role play and Problem Solving: House Building

This activity involves problem solving, teamwork and discussion.

You will need:

3 pigs and a wolf (or dog if you are like me and don’t have a wolf!)
Spaghetti to represent the straw
Card to represent the sticks
Sugar lumps to represent bricks (these were popular)
A hairdryer!

You might have different things in your home which you might choose to use.

Start retelling the story, and when it’s time, make the house out of straw, sticks and bricks. Problem solve with your child about how you will fit the sticks together. Will you need tape or blu tack? Work as a team to build the houses.
Now it’s time for the wolf to make an appearance. Encourage your child to join in with the repetitive language – “I will huff and puff and blow your house down!”
Use the hairdryer for the ‘puff’ and aim towards each of the houses in turn and hope the straw and stick houses fall down, and the sugar lumped brick house stays up! It worked for us! Good Luck!

Challenge: Make two towers – one of cups and the other of cans. Repeat using the hairdryer and discuss why the cups fall over but the cans don’t.

Maths: Shape House

This activity involves looking at, creating and discussing shapes.

You will need: a picture of a house from a book or magazine, lollipop sticks or straws or cut out pieces of paper or card, pre-cut windows and doors. If your child is older they could draw the windows and door themselves and cut it out.
Look at the picture of the house. Ask your child what shape the house is?
Use the lollipop sticks to create the square.
Repeat with the roof, discussing that it’s a triangle.
Decide where the windows and doors should go.
What number will you put on the house?

Art and Fine Motor: Sugar Lump Painting

You have used the sugar lumps to make the Third Little Pig’s house so now you can use them for maths. Before you do this, your child can paint them to make them a bit more fun to use! This activity is great for their fine motor skills too as they are moving the sugar lumps around in the paint.

Put some blobs of paint on a plate.
Your child takes a sugar lump and moves it around in the paint so that all 6 faces of the cube have paint on them.
Let the cubes dry.
Use them for the maths activity the next day.

Maths: Brick Dividing

You now have bricks so that each of the Three Little Pigs can build their houses out of bricks. This maths activity uses ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd), counting skills, the language of more and division.

You will need: 3 pigs, ordinal numbers and the painted sugar lumps.
Explain that you have all of these bricks for the pigs and they need to be shared out EQUALLY!
You divide them out but do it wrong. Give lots to the 1st Little Pig, a few to the 2nd and a lot to the 3rd. Ask your child what is wrong. Pretend to be the 2nd Little Pig and complain that you don’t have enough and that you want more.
Place all the bricks back in the pile and start to divide the bricks out equally – one for the 1st Little Pig, one for the 2nd Little Pig and one for the 3rd Little Pig.
Explain that the bricks have to go in a straight line or it’s difficult to count them.
After a few times of dividing the bricks, ask your child to count how many bricks the pigs have. Make sure they use one number name for each brick. Once they get to the end they stop.
At times, stop after giving the 1st Little Pig a brick and say that the 2nd and 3rd Little Pigs want one more so that they have the same amount as the 1st Little Pig.
Repeat till you have shared all of the brick out equally.
How many bricks do they have each?

Challenge: Can your child count up the total amount of bricks?

Role Play: Holiday Packing

The Three Little Pigs packed their bags as they were leaving home to build their own houses. You and your child can pack your bags to go on holiday. Hooray! Where will you go? Ice-cream land? Duplo land? Upside down land? Pirate land?

Write a checklist of things that you will need to pack. If you have an older child, they could write the first sound or have a go at writing the whole word.
Find a bag for you and a bag for your child.
Go round the house and gather up the items on the checklist.
Tick the item off, or use a sticker to mark it off when you have both packed the item.
You are ready to go on your adventure!

Writing: Suitcase Drawing and writing

After packing everything in our suitcase we thought we should draw a picture and label it so that we don’t forget what we packed!

Draw an outline of a suitcase.
Discuss with your child what they packed.
Ask them to draw the items and label it for them.

If you have an older child they might be able to hear the first sound of each of the words and write it down, or have a go at writing the whole word.

Maths: Car Ordinal Numbers

As the story uses the language of 1st, 2nd and 3rd when referring to the pigs you can race cars and see which car goes across the finishing line 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.

You will need: 5 cars, a finishing line made out of foil, ordinal numbers to 5 written down and a piece of cardboard to place them on.
Start with 2 cars – race them and once they have gone over the finish line give the cars 1st and 2nd place.
Introduce 3rd and then 4th and 5th and repeat using the ordinal numbers. Can they predict which car they think will come first? What would happen if you used a car, digger and tractor?

You might have to repeat this lots of times! It was popular in our household!

Role Play and Writing: Pet Shop

As the Second Little Pig took his pet goldfish with him, you can set up your own Pet Shop! Creating it will take a whole morning, if not longer to set up. If possible, place it in an area where it can stay for a few days, which gives the opportunity for your child to revisit it.

Gather any animals you might have. We had an exotic pet shop as we were selling flamingos!
Create a place for them to live in – a basket for the dogs, a bowls with torn up foil and blue paper for the fish, a storage box for the birds and cats. We found a big box and covered it in a blanket for the animals to be perched on.
Make animal labels and food for the animals- bird seed, cat and dog treats. Inside we had cut up card for the cat and dog treats and scrunched up paper for the bird seed. We made the packets out of card and stuck them together with tape.Your child might want to mark make, ‘dogs’ or ‘bird seed’ or if they are older they could sound it out themselves.
Write a price list containing all of the items.
Paint a Pet Shop sign.
Get a till with money inside and paper to write down the receipt.

You are all set! he highlight is using the till and when playing for things count out your coins.

Art: Blow Painting

As the wolf huffed and puffed it’s time for blow painting!

Choose some paints and pop them on the paper.
Get a straw and blow away.
If the paint does not move then add some water.
Watch as the paints mix and change colour.

Reciting a story: Huffing and Puffing

This is an easy activity. You need three doors and that’s it.

Your child is the Three Little Pigs and you are the Wolf.
Your child stands in the room, behind the door and you are in front of the door.
You knock on the door and say “Little Pig, Little Pig, let me come in”
Your child replies, “Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin I will not let you in.”
You say, “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down” You start to huff, open the door and your child runs to the 2nd door and closes it. You then repeat it and your child will run to the 3rd door and then you repeat it again.

You are repeating the language of the story and children love to be chased! Winning all round!

Writing: Wolf Poster – for children who are writing

If you have an older child they could write a poster to help you find the big, bad wolf!

Write the title at the top of the page: ‘Wanted wolf’, ‘Have you seen this wolf?’ or ‘Help us find this wolf.’
Write ‘He is’ on the poster.
You or your child draw a picture of the wolf and colour it in.
Explain that you are going to write a list of adjectives (describing words) so that people know what the wolf looks like.
Give a couple of examples yourself and write them down on post-it-notes and then ask your child for adjectives. What does the wolf look like? Is he kind? What colour is the wolf?
You could write down the adjectives they say or can they write down the first sound of the adjective? Maybe they could write to write the whole word.
Put the poster up in your window so that their writing has a purpose!