Tot School : The Three Little Pigs

First of all, I have decided to drop the kid's nick names so here is a quick intro

Emily (3 years)

Madeline (9 months)

Jovie (3, almost 4 years!)

and
Lennon ( 16 months)

Now onto the real business...
For the month of February we will be studying different fairy tales. Emily and Jovie both have a thing for the Three Little Pigs story. One of their favorite games is to pretend the babies are Big Bad Wolves They run all over the house to get away and hide from them. I decided to feed off of their interest by making The Three Little Pigs our first weekly unit. Here is a look at all of our fun!

Circle Time
Books:
The Three Little Pigs by James Marshall


The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas and Helen Oxenbury


The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka


Song/Fingerplay:

Eight Baby Pigs

Two mother pigs lived in a pen (thumbs)
Each had four babies and that made ten (fingers of both hands)
These four babies were black and white (fingers of one hand)
These four babies were black as night (fingers of the other hand)
All eight babies loved to play (wiggle fingers)
As they rolled and rolled in the mud all day! (roll hands)

Arts and Crafts

Houses Craft - After reading The Three Little Pigs, the kids made this cute little craft for a story stretcher. I asked the kids to think of the first house that the pigs built and then gave them the materials to build their own house. We made all three in order, encouraging lots of talk about the beginning, middle, and end of the story!

Ping Pong Pigs - Jovie and Emily each made a set of these adorable little piggies! They painted the ping pong balls, then glued the eyes and nose on after they dried. I hot glued the legs and tail and drew ears on for them. Aren't they just the cutest thing?

 Pig Painting - Lennon painted this little pig while the big girls worked on their ping pong pigs. He loves to paint so much! I added the ears, nose, eyes, and tail on for him later.

Big Bad Wolf Craft - The kids had fun painting these wolf cutouts. For a fun twist we listened to The Three Little Pigs Silly Symphony while they painted (I didn't tell them there was a video that went with it - shhh). They enjoyed listening for the sound of the big bad wolf and trying to guess what was happening based on the music! I surprised them by adding some fun little party blowers once they were dry. They had fun huffing and puffing and blowing!

 Music and Movement

The kids all love music time. This week we watched our favorite Laurie Berkner videos, the much requested Goin' on a Bear Hunt, and here they are dancing to some fun videos from The Learning Station! Music videos are not my ideal situation for music/movement time, but it gets their wiggles out and keeps them entertained and happy while I make lunch, so I've come to accept it as our current solution!

Gross Motor Activities

Active Story Telling - For a fun way to get the kids moving we acted out the story of The Three Little Pigs.        I narrated the story and acted out the part of the big bad wolf using a paper towel roll decorated as a wolf nose. They had so much fun building their houses and running all around the house to get away from the big bad wolf. We told the story over and over and over again taking turns as the big bad wolf! Look at these adorable piggies.

 

Pig, Pig, Wolf - We played Duck, Duck, Goose, but changed it to Pig, Pig,Wolf to fit our theme. I didn't get any pictures because I was busy playing, but believe me when I say we had lots of fun!

Ping Pong Ball Race - This activity was actually a flop for us. I am sharing anyway because A) we all have flops, and B) I think it would be fun under the right circumstances.  The kiddos were a bit out of sorts on the day this was planned and between trying to ward off squabbles and keep the little ones from peeling the tape off the floor, this activity was just not going to happen. Anyway, the object of the game was for the kids to race their ping pong balls from one house to the next house by blowing them across the floor.

Sensory Play 
Three Little Pigs Sensory Box - The kids had fun playing with our sensor box all week long.

 They had fun acting out the story

and just plain having fun!

Science 
Three Little Pigs Science - We brought the story to life using a bow dryer, shredded paper, popsicle sticks, and rocks to test the physics of the story ourselves. I used tissue boxes and construction paper to make 3 representational houses for the straw, sticks, and bricks. I had the kids put some shredded paper in the first box, the popsicle sticks in the second box, and rocks in the third box. The kids took turns using the blow dryer to test which houses could be blown down. They discovered that the brick house with the rocks in it was much too heavy to be moved by the blow dryer.

They had fun playing with the blow dryer even after the experiment was over!