The story itself is thought to be a folk tale which was originally written in the 19 th century. The hard working red hen finds a grain of wheat and plants, grows, reaps, and mills the wheat and then bakes the flour into bread. Along the way she asks the "who will help me...?" of the lazy animals where she lives all of whom answer "Not I". Today there are many versions of the tale and which version you have dictates the animals involved in the tale but the choral nature of the text is usually common to each version. At the end of the tale the red hen having done all the work keeps all the bread for herself - the moral of the tale,hard work pays off and if you want to share the benefits you have to work with the team.
The story can also be used to teach plant life cycles; sequencing, farm animals, and crops as well as linking into a baking session!
Without further ado here is a list of resources you could use to tie in with this version. This version has a duck, a dog and a cat as well as the hen but obviously if your version has different animals you might need to adapt it slightly.
- online audio version of the story if you want one with words only here is one from Enchanted Learning
- Wheat to bread sequencing cards
- paper craft duck from DLTK
- online jigsaw from First School
- Painting/printing activity. Make duck and chicken footprints on large bits of paper, use a plastic fork for the chicken feet and a spatula for the duck feet - talk about webbed v. non-webbed feet.
- How to draw a cat from Chunky Monkey
- dog wordsearch
- count by two's hen dot-to-dot
- hen maze
Very nice selection of links - thanks!
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