The 3 Little Pigs story ideas.....

The Story of the Pigs
There were three little pigs who were forced to roam,
So each decided to build a home.
They bought some neat stuff from a nice man,
And then he said to them, "Build what you can!"
The 3 little pigs said "We shall use it all!"
Then the first little pig took the basket of straw.
The second little pig took the bundle of sticks,
The third little pig took a wheelbarrow of bricks.
They each built a house...and you know the rest,
Only one house is left cuz it was the best. ( LAC )

Provide materials for the children to make a 3 Little Pigs scene....straw
(raffia), sticks (popcicle sticks) and red paper (bricks) as well as misc.
other colors of paper, and whatever else the children can brainstorm to be
suitable "building materials", potato halves with the shape of a pig cut
into it for printing with pink paint, also have glue, scissors, and just lots of
"stuff". Let the kids go with it....

Encourage the children to make their own curled piggy tails by cutting a
pinkcircle around and around toward the middle. When finished and held up, a
spiral piggy tail will stretch out into the sprial shape. Let them tape the
tail to their bottoms. Also provide pink paper for piggy snouts made from
cutcircles with nostrils drawn on then tape it to their noses. Now assist the
children in gathering the props to act out the story.

Put miniature story props in the sand table and let the children act out the
story this way, too. (Oriental Trading Catalog has great rubber farm, zoo,
dinosaur animals to order. Their farm collection would be great for this
activity...I've said it before...this company has great stuff for VERY
reasonable prices.) The house could be made from small sized boxes or milk
cartons, decorated with simple designs to illustrate the pigs individual
homes. (Have plain cartons available for the children to design new homes
in the art area.)

Invite the children to bring in their own books of The Three Little Pigs.
Look at one particular section of the story from each book (like the part
where the pigs get their supplies for their home building) and compare all
the different versions/illustrations. How are they alike and how are they different?

Shoe printing (have various shoes with interesting patterns on the
bottom, use .......paint rollars to cover bottoms with paint, press
on paper.) Sew on dress shapes(cut from plastic canvas)

Shoe Classification Game: Have different sized shoes, kids can classifly
according to size. (at my preschool we do this kind of game in group but it
also could be done during free-play)

Science: grow Pumpkin seeds

PETER PAN
*make eyepatches (you could make a hat) have a
picture treasure hunt (or we do one..find a square, find a circle, find
somehting red, ect). We take paper towel rolls and decorate them to be
telescopes. For movement activities we dance to pirate songs, pretend to
be walking the plank on a balace beam or such. oh...and also do a play
activity where we hide a ticking clock and see who can find it.

*My kids and I talked about pirates while reading the Peter Pan fairy tale.
It just so happened that Captain Hook himself left a note on the very last
page (imagine that??). He said that he was at our school and left a
treasure somewhere on the playground. He left us a map of the playground on the side
of a brown grocery sack. There was a giant X over where the treasure was
hidden. The children had to find the treasure by using the map. They were
very surprised when they found Hershey's Choc. Nuggetts (silver) and Rolo's
(gold). They decided that Captain Hook wasn't such a bad guy after all! :)

*Have the children hunt for buried treasure! Beforehand decorate a box so
that it looks like a treasure box. Fill it with goodies for the kids. Hide
the box. Hand out clues to the children - depending on the size of your
group you might want to divide them up. Give one clue to each group. Make the
clues pictures so that the children don't have to be able to read. Each
clue should take them to another spot where they find another clue until finally
they find the clue that takes them to the treasure box. The kids really
love the suspense! We did this one year during summer school at a local park and
it was such fun that we had all of the children in the park following us to
find the treasure!

*Do the Treasure Hunt. Start the treasure hunt inside or outside by giving
each child a clue to lead to other clues. The last clue will lead to the
treasure map which will show where the treasure chest is buried outside.
*If the children want to play with the clues some more, they can hide them
from each other and have the lead to a book which I will read once it is
found. (Hint: They have to hide the book first and work backwards, hiding
clues in a backwards order.
Materials Needed:

*Blank "Treasure Hunt" book for each child, markers, pencils or other writing utensils.
*A box for each child--Treasure Chests.
*Small objects--beads, pennies, gum machine toys, milk tops or other jar
tops, buttons, bells, etc.
*A treasure map for each child--depicting the back yard with an "X" to mark
the spot where that child's treasure is hidden.
*A large paper "X" to put on the ground for each of the younger children.
*Small pieces of paper with clues to lead to the map. (make up clues like
'look under doormat' and 'look on a chair'--make clues to fit dcks abilities)
*Copy the following rhyme. Cut into different sections. Glue onto blank
paper and copy to make as many books as needed.

The Treasure Chest
While searching for treasures the other day, I found a treasure chest
hidden far away. I opened the treasure trunk, and what did I find? Wonderful
treasures of every kind.

On top of the pile was a great big _______________.

Then, I discovered two old ______________________.

Next was a shiny black ________________________.

My favorite was a ____________________________.

The most beautiful treasure was a ________________.

The bottom of the treasure chest was filled with_______.

*You could have them make ther own pirate flags
Apple wedges toothpicks and cheese slices make a pirate ship to eat
Somewhere I saw where you could make a hook out of a paper cup with maybe a
paper hook on the end!!!!
* We have done a pirate unit at our center and one of the kid's favorite
activities is to search for buried treasure. Collect lots of rocks, we use
small ones that fit in their hands. The kids paint the rocks gold. (The
teachers paint about 40 extra too). Then we hide the "gold" in the sand
table or outside in the sandbox; letting each child find two buried treasures!

Medieval Times--for tales from this era

*Castle Party:
On invitation shaped like a shield write: A message to you Knights and
Ladies, from all the kingdom around: A festival awaits your pleasure when
the drawbridge doth come down.

We play "castle bowling" where you make pins out of quart milk
cartons, paint them to look like castles (add a few drops of dish liquid to
make paint stick). Set them up in bowling fashion and use a rubber ball to
knock 'em down. For refreshments we make banana nut muffins with icing and a
chocolate coin on top.

KING/QUEEN'S CROWN

Cut the cardboard into strips about 5 inches wide, and long enough to go
around child's head cut into a pattern of your choosing Bend into a circle,
and glue or staple the edges Paint the crown Glue on decorations Make a fur brim by
gluing on some absorbent cotton.

* Hats
~ For the Princesses - Cut a lg circle from paper, cut once into the center
point, roll and staple to form a cone to fit the child's head. We used
strips of crepe paper, long pieces of colorful curling ribbon and tulle (soft
netting) hanging from the top to decorate. THe children also added color
(paint/marker), jewels and glitter. I attached elastic to hold them on but
that's really not needed.

* Medieval Banners
1) We used a "shield" shape cut from paper.
2) Have the child write their name across the top.
3) Below the name the children colored stars, strips, suns, animals ect.
to personalize their own banner. We brainstormed ideas that might have a
personal meaning to a child.
4) We mounted this on paper that resembled a banner. (Sort of flag
shaped?)
5) We talked about how royalty would have their own banners to proclaim
who they were to others. When you saw a banner, be it on a castle or maybe on a
coach when royalty traveled, you would know who it belonged to. We compared
this idea to flags of different countries.

*KING or Queen for a Day
1) On one long edge of each cardboard strip cut a zigzag edge to make
points like a crown.
2) Give each child a cardboard strip. Measure it around his/her head,
allowing enough room for it to overlap slightly. Cut off any extra
cardboard.
3) Lay the strip lat and let the child decorate his/her crown with the
jewels, beads, and glitter that are available.
4) When the glue has dried, staple the ends of the cardboard together to
form a crown.

*Princess Hat - Roll a large sheet of paper, about 15x24" into a cone
shape. Tape the ends together. Trim the paper so it sits evenly on their
head. Stape tissue paper around the edge. Glue a strip of fabric at the
peak so it hangs down.

*Knight Helmet - Cut the helmet shape from a one-gallon plastic milk jug.
Cover it with aluminum foil. Cut a visor for the unused part of the jug.
Cover the visor with foil and attach it to the helmet with brass fasteners.
Cover the ends of the fasteners inside the helmet with tape.

*Silver Treasure Game - Cut circles from cardboard. Wrap each circle in
aluminum foil to represent coins. To Play - Hide the coins around the
party area. To begin the game, announce that the dragan has broken into the
castle and ahs taken the silver treasure. All the princesses and knights look for
the treasure. The one who finds the most coins becomes a knight of the
round
table.

*Capture the Dragon - Select various types of cardboard boxes to make a
dragon shape. Cover the boxes with glue and construction paper. Decorate
with pieces of cut paper. Add a paper tail and features to the head. Cut
three long, thin strips of poster board. Staple the ends of each strip
together to make three hoops. To Play - Toss the hoops over the dragon's
head. The player who gets the most hoops over the head wins.

Bowl the Castle Over - Cut and discard the top sections from 6 half-gallon
milk cartons. Cover the cartons with glue and paper. Using sissors, cut
turrets along the top to look like a castle. Add stone designs and doors
with a marker. To Play - Set up the castles like pins in bowling. Using a
lightweight ball, have your guests take turns trying to bowl over the
castles.

*Sword in the Stone ---- Cut an egg cup from the bottom of a cardboard egg
carton for each. Turn it botton side and cut a small slit in the center.
To make a sword, cover one ice cream stick with aluminum foil. With scissors,
cut the ends off another ice-cream stick and color it with markers. Glue
the two sticks together.

Peanutbutter Castle
Cookie sheet or tray Assorted crackers Jar of peanut butter & plastic
knife Raisins, grapes, chocolate chips, dry cereal or any other edible
decorations. For neatness' sake, build your castle on a cookie sheet or tray. Set
crackers vertically to make walls, gluing them to each other with peanut butter. (If
you have trouble erecting the walls, you can also start by spreading a
foundation layer of peanut butter and setting the crackers into it.) Glue
smaller crackers onto larger ones to make doors or window shutters, and
cement graham crackers in place as a sloped roof. Decorate with raisins, cereal or
anything else you can mortar on with peanut butter.

Cinderella or Alice in Wonderland
I always did a "tea party" and an "un-birthday party"
For the tea party, we made our own tarts and lemonade.
For the un-birthday party we all made decorations and hung them up in the
room. We mad and decorated our own cupcakes. Since we planned this early, we
had a small un-birthday gift exchange I set a $1.50 limit so we got a lot of
matchbox cars, crayons, and little golden books. The kids had a blast!
Oh, we have also done Hansel & Gretel and we made a gingerbread house out of
graham crackers and candies.

Little Red Riding Hood's Fruit Basket

Materials: Variety or fruits (apple, grapes, peach, orange, cantaloupe,
banana,
                  whole pineapple, kiwi, ect)
                  Picnic basket with lid or basket with cloth cover
                  Little Red Riding Hood cape and bonnet

Place fruits in basket and cover. Teacher pretends to be Little Red Riding
Hood going to Grandmother's house with a special treat.

Allow the children to reach into the basket and identify the fruits using
only their sense of touch. Encourage them to describe how it feels: size
shape texture. When they pull it out continue with color, smell and taste.
After the activity the fruit can be cut up and the children can have a tasting
party.

Jack and The Beanstalk

*There are so many versions of the Jack and the Beanstalk story-some
told from different perspectives. How about reading a few and making a
graph of favorites?

Jack and the Beanstalk (retold and illustrated by Steven Kellogg)
Jim and the Beanstalk (Raymond Briggs)
Jack and the Beanstalk (retold by Dr. Alvin Granowsky)/Giants Have
Feelings
Too (Dr. Alvin Granowsky)
The Beanstalk Bandit (Gerry Lomsky)
Jasper's Beanstalk (Nick Butterworth an Mick Inkpen)

*when planting beans, how about experimenting with light/no light,
water/no
water, etc.

*plant variety of beans in 1 container-send home with soup recipe (7
bean
soup)

*sort beans in sensory table

*make bean and cheese quesadillas (EASY) for a snack

*act out the story

Hang a rope from the ceiling covered with brown crepe paper and green
cellophane leaves. Attach two boots to the ceiling, one each side of the
'stalk'.

*Grow beans in jars or plant in the garden. Monitor and chart growth.
*Collage with variety of beans.
*Sort different varieties of beans.
*Activities with gold coins - counting, sharing.
*Trace around teacher or each other and collage 'giant' using material
*Measure height of children with tape and seriate.

The Gingerbread Man Cookie cutters, ginger root, spice, Gingernut
biscuits, caramellised ginger on table to taste and smell.

*Make gingerbread men!
*Fingerpaint using brown paint. take two relief prints per child. Use
templates of
*Gingerbread man. Trace and cut. Staple two sides together, stuff with
paper scarps. Add buttons, sticky dots for eyes. *Sequence pictures
according to recipe.
*Chart 'What we know about the Gingerbread Man' ie fast, cheeky, sweet
etc
*Use small jam jars to create smell pots by placing different spices in
each one and puncturing holes through tin lid. Can children identify
different ones?
*Recall story through role play and use of felt board characters.
Dear Sharon and all,
    Here are two Gingerbread Man/Boy sites. I've done activities from both of these sites!
Have fun.
http://www.angelfire.com/ma/1stGrade/pagegingerbread.html
http://www.kconnect.com/kc-sogbmc.html
ALSO....
GINGERBREAD MAN
From the book Once upon a rhyme by Scholastic
Gingerbread Man ( Jimmy Crack Corn)
A baker took some ginger dough
And shaped a man from head to toe.
When it was baked, the cookie fled
Here is what the cookie said:
Chorus
Run! Run! As fast as you can!
You can't catch me, I 'm the gingerbread man!
Run! Run! As fast as you can!
I'm the gingerbread man!
*****
The cookie man ran past a cow
Who said, "i want to eat you now!"
The cookie man just laughed and fled,
Here is what the cookie said:
Chorus:
***
A farmer saw the man go by,
He chased him low, he chased him high,
The cookie man just shook his head.
Here is what the cookie said:
Chorus:
***
He finally reached a river wide,
A fox asked, "Would you like a ride?"
The cookie sat on the fox's head,
Here is what the sly fox said:
"You can't run! That's my plan!
I'm going to eat you, gingerbread man!
You can't run! That's my plan!"
And he ate the gingerbread man!
Moral of the story... people who boast about their abilities may someday be caught with their guard down.
Cut the top off the student milk carton. Give each child a piece of paper folded in fourths. Have them draw a picture of the gingerbread man, the cow, the farmer and the fox. Glue these to the milk carton so that when the child inserts their hand the characters are the right way. As the poem is re read have them turn the carton so the correct character faces forward.
Make gingerbread cookies from scratch. Put all the cooking tools in a bag and before you pull them out, describe them and see if they can guess the tool's name.
I give each child a blank gingerbread pattern and have them decorate and put their name on it.   We then post these in the hallway in a tree pattern for a Christmas wish. :-)
Sandy/K/MO
GINGERBREAD MUFFINS
Supplies
3 Tablespoons gingerbread mix 1 Tablespoon water
Materials
one - 5 once waxed paper cup per child one popsicle stick per child   electric skillet
measuring spoons: 2 each - tablespoon bowls for ingredients   labels for names
Directions
   1.Measure 3 Tablespoons gingerbread mix into the paper cup.
   2.Add 1 Tablespoon water and stir.
   3.Bake in electric skillet at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
   4.Cool and eat.
Teacher Tips
Be sure to use the waxed cups with a small ridge on the bottom. They can be purchased at most grocery stores as kitchen cups. You do not need to add water in the electric skillet! Really . . . it works and the cups do not burn because of the wax! Place all the cups into the skillet at the same time - one skillet usually holds at least 20 cups. Place the lid on the skillet and bake for 15 minutes. To eat, have the children tear the cup and remove the muffin. Use the recipe cards which follow in a cooking center for the children to use for directions.