🌿 Session 1
Discovering the story
👦🏻 Target age: 5–6 years old.
⏰ Duration : about 30 minutes.
Materials: transcription of the story (available below), materials to help explain certain vocabulary words (for example: wheat field, ear of wheat…)
Space: classroom gathering area, students seated in a circle.
🎯Educational objectives
This first session is dedicated to discovering and sharing the story together. The version of the story is available in the appendix (see below).
🧩 Session plan
| Step 1 | Discovering a simplified version of the story of the Little Red Hen. |
| Step 2 | Collective enrichment of the sensory environment of each step of the story. |
| Step 3 | The teacher tells the story integrating the elements contributed by the students. |
🟢Step 1: Discovering a simplified version of the story of the Little Red Hen
Arrangement: group gathering, seated in a circle
Teacher’s role |
Read aloud the text placed in the appendix, or tell it without written support. |
Students’ role |
Listen and imagine the story in their minds |
🗣️Example of introduction by the teacher:
“I am going to tell you a story. Try to imagine the story in your head. You can close your eyes.”
🟢Step 2: Collective enrichment of the setting of each step of the story
🎯Objectives: In this second stage, the teacher revisits the story sentence by sentence while discussing with the students the sensory environment of each step of the story. This is the moment when vocabulary can be explained.
Teacher’s role |
Lead and regulate the discussion about the sensory environment of each stage of the story, and note the students’ ideas. |
Students’ role |
Participate in the shared creation while respecting the rules for taking turns speaking. |
🗣️Example :
“The Little Red Hen finds a grain of wheat: do you know what a grain of wheat is?” (you can show a picture of a wheat field or an ear of wheat)
How big is the Little Red Hen?
How many chicks does she have?
How do we peck? (gesture)
What is this path like? Wide? (gesture); Narrow? (gesture); With dirt? Stones?
What is the weather like?
What can we see next to the path? Are there other animals?
What can we hear around her? Birds? A tractor? The wind? What sound does it make?
→ The group agrees, and the teacher writes down the suggestions.
Note: You can stop at the different actions: sowing, harvesting, crushing the grain to make flour. For the stage “making and eating the cake,” you can say that it will be discussed next time. If describing all the steps is too long, the session can be divided into two.
🟢Step 3: The teacher tells the story integrating the elements contributed by the students
🎯Objectives: During this third stage, the story is retold orally by the teacher, integrating the class’s suggestions. Students are invited to close their eyes and “create a movie in their heads”: seeing the images, but also hearing and smelling things (invite them to imagine what it feels like to touch a grain of wheat, flour, a hot dish, etc.).
Teacher’s role |
Tell the story, enriched by the students’ discoveries. |
Students’ role |
Listen and imagine the story in their minds |
“The Little Red Hen”
The Little Red Hen is on the path with her little chicks. She pecks, she finds a grain of wheat, and she says:
“Cluck cluck cluck! Who wants to help me sow this grain of wheat?
— Quack quack! Not me! says the duck.
— Oink! Not me! says the pig.
— Meow! Not me! says the cat.
— Cluck cluck cluck! Never mind, I will do it myself, with my little chicks.”
And she sows the grain of wheat, then she waters it.
The grain grows into a sprout, a stalk, and then a beautiful ear of wheat.
When the ear is ripe, the Little Red Hen says:
“Cluck cluck cluck! Who wants to help me harvest this ear of wheat?
— Quack quack! Not me! says the duck.
— Oink! Not me! says the pig.
— Meow! Not me! says the cat.
— Cluck cluck cluck! Never mind, I will do it myself, with my little chicks.”
And she harvests the ear of wheat.
When the ear has been harvested, the Little Red Hen says:
“Cluck cluck cluck! Who wants to help me make a cake with this wheat?
— Quack quack! Not me! says the duck.
— Oink! Not me! says the pig.
— Meow! Not me! says the cat.
— Never mind, I will do it myself, with my little chicks.”
So the Little Red Hen crushes the wheat to make flour.
With the flour, she makes a good cake, which she puts in the oven to bake.
When the cake is ready, the Little Red Hen says:
“Cluck cluck cluck! Who wants to help me eat this good cake?
— Quack quack! Me! says the duck.
— Oink! Me! says the pig.
— Meow! Me! says the cat.
— Cluck cluck cluck! No, no, no! You did not help me make it, so you will not help me eat it! I will eat it myself, with my little chicks!”
Cheep cheep cheep, my story is finished!