🌿 Session 3
Embodying the characters
👦🏻 Target age: 5–6 years old.
⏰ Duration: about 30 minutes.
Materials: Read beforehand the version provided in Appendix 2 (see below). This version can help the teacher guide the students’ exploration.
Space: classroom gathering area, students seated in a circle.
🎯Educational objectives
This third session focuses on representing the characters: their voice, the way they move, and their appearance. Students are invited to propose their ideas, and the teacher then chooses a collective version that the class will adopt.
🧩 Session plan:
| Step 1 | The teacher tells the story integrating the elements contributed by the students during the previous sessions. |
| Step 2 | Exploring gestures and voices that characterize each character and integrating them into the recurring dialogue. |
| Step 3 | Imagining the path of a smell: when the cake is baking, the window is open… |
| Step 4 | The teacher tells the final version of the story enriched with gestures, smells, tastes, etc. |
🟢Step 1: Retelling the story enriched during the previous sessions
| Teacher’s role | Tell the story integrating the elements contributed by the students during the previous sessions. |
| Students’ role | Listen and imagine the story in their minds. |
🟢Step 2: Exploring gestures and voices that characterize each character
🎯Objectives: Deepen the representation of the story by focusing on the characters (cat, hen, duck, pig).
| Teacher’s role | Lead the discussion about the characters, write down students’ ideas, and integrate them into the recurring dialogue. |
| Students’ role | Participate in creating the characters and collectively repeat the enriched dialogue. |
🗣️Examples:
Imagine a cat: its ears, its head, its nose, its tail, its paws. How does it walk?
How does it speak? Who can show a gesture? (licking its paw, stretching)
→ Choose a version to perform together. Follow the same process with the hen, the duck, and the pig.
Integrating into the recurring dialogue: repeat the dialogue while including the chosen voices and gestures for each character.
“Cluck cluck cluck! (hen) Who wants to help me sow this grain of wheat?”
- Quack quack! Not me! says the duck (gesture, nasal voice).
- Oink! Not me! says the pig (gesture, deep voice).
- Meow! Not me! says the cat (gesture, snobbish voice).
- Cluck cluck cluck! Never mind, I’ll do it myself, with my little chicks.”
🟢Step 3: The path of the cake’s smell
🎯Objectives: Use hand gestures to mimic the path of the smell and associate each animal with “It smells good!”
| Teacher’s role | Represent the path of the smell, from the oven to the animals. |
| Students’ role | Participate in the mime and repeat together: “It smells good!” |
🟢Step 4: Shared storytelling
| Teacher’s role | Tell the story integrating the students’ ideas and the gestures discovered. |
| Students’ role | Participate through gestures and repeat the dialogues together. |
Example of guided storytelling: “The Little Red Hen”
Note: This version is not meant to be read exactly as written, but to inspire the teacher to tell the story using gestures and images created by the class.
Once upon a time there was a little hen, all red. Her belly was covered with red feathers (gesture: smooth the feathers on the belly), and her head was covered with red feathers (gesture: smooth feathers on the face). And she had a lovely little red comb (gesture: smooth the comb with both hands like a Mohawk).
That day she was walking with her three little chicks. She pecked here, peck, peck, peck (gesture: pecking), she pecked there, peck! peck! peck! and she found a beautiful grain of wheat.
She said:
“This grain is too beautiful to be eaten. I will plant it.
Cluck cluck cluck! (hen gesture: turning the head left and right) Who wants to help me sow this grain of wheat?
— Quack quack! Not me! says the duck (duck gesture, for example wiggling its bottom).
— Oink! Not me! says the pig (pig gesture, lifting the snout).
— Meow! Not me! says the cat (cat gesture, licking its paw or stretching).
— Cluck cluck cluck! (hen gesture) Never mind, I’ll do it myself, with my little chicks.”
So the Little Red Hen scratched the earth (gesture), made a hole (gesture), put the grain of wheat inside (gesture), and watered it, taking water with her beak (gesture).
Time passed (sun gesture, rain gesture), and the grain grew into a sprout (finger passing in front of the hand), then a stalk (the sprout grows longer), and finally a beautiful ear of wheat.
When the ear of wheat was golden, the Little Red Hen thought it was time to harvest it.
“Cluck cluck cluck! (hen gesture) Who wants to help me harvest this ear of wheat?
— Quack quack! Not me! (duck gesture) says the duck.
— Oink! Not me! (pig gesture) says the pig.
— Meow! Not me! (cat gesture) says the cat.
— Cluck cluck cluck! (hen gesture) Never mind, I’ll do it myself, with my little chicks.”
And she harvested the ear of wheat and carried it home.
When she arrived home, the Little Red Hen said:
“Cluck cluck cluck! (hen gesture) Who wants to help me make a cake with this wheat?
— Quack quack! Not me! (duck gesture) says the duck.
— Oink! Not me! (pig gesture) says the pig.
— Meow! Not me! (cat gesture) says the cat.
— Cluck cluck cluck! (hen gesture) Never mind, I’ll do it myself, with my little chicks.”
So the Little Red Hen crushed the wheat to make flour (gesture).
(describe making the cake using the ingredients and gestures found in class)
The Little Red Hen tidied everything with her chicks.
In the oven, the cake was baking…
and it began to smell delicious!
The smell of the cake escaped from the oven. It stretched like this, twisted like this (hand gestures). The smell wandered around the kitchen and then slipped out the window.
It passed under the pig’s snout:
“Oink oink, that smells good!” said the pig (pig gesture). And he tried to find where the smell came from… he trotted to the kitchen window and placed his snout on the sill.
The smell stretched and twisted and continued on its way. It passed under the duck’s beak:
“Quack quack, that smells good!” said the duck (duck gesture). He looked for where the smell came from and waddled to the window, jumped onto the pig’s back, and stretched his beak into the kitchen.
But the smell stretched and twisted and continued on its way.
It passed under the nose of the cat, who was sleeping in the sun. The cat opened one eye:
“Meow, that smells good!” said the cat (cat gesture). He looked for where the smell came from and, tail in the air, walked to the window. He jumped onto the windowsill and stretched his nose inside the kitchen.
The Little Red Hen pretended she had not seen them.
The oven alarm rang: Ding!
And the Little Red Hen took the cake out of the oven and placed it on the table.
The smell now filled the whole kitchen.
The little chicks jumped onto the chairs around the table, and the Little Red Hen looked at them:
“Who wants to eat this delicious cake?
— Oink oink! Me! says the pig.
— Quack quack! Me! says the duck.
— Meow! Me! says the cat.
— Cluck cluck cluck! No, no, no! You didn’t help me make it, so you won’t help me eat it! I will eat it myself, with my little chicks!”
With her big knife, she cut four slices in the crispy crust of the cake.
Mmm, in their beaks it was soft, warm, and fragrant… Yum!
That day, the Little Red Hen and her chicks had a wonderful feast!
A little red hen here, a big cake there, and that is where my story ends…