Red Ridinghood

Red Ridinghood was another Fairy Tale that I loved to use with my Kindergartners.  I usually told this story using props before I read it.  I always found that my whole class was really paying attention when I told a story, and I could look around at their reaction when I wasn’t looking at the pages of a book.  I liked having simple props or pictures to show while I told them the story.  These pictures fold in half and stand up.

Here is the basic story that I told my class:

story

Here are printable copies of the stand up figures:

Red and Hunter

Mom and Gma

wolf

cottage 4

wolf bed 1

Sometimes I used these sequencing pictures.  You could show these while you tell the story.  You could use them as a follow up activity to help the children retell the story.  Sometimes I gave the children a few of the pictures and had them write a sentence about what was going on in that part of the story.  Sequencing pictures like this is great for practicing the beginning, middle and end of stories – or putting events in order.

My class loved to take turns acting out the story too!  I had a red cape, left over from Halloween for Red Ridinghood.  The Woodsman held a paper towel tube for an axe.  We used a basket from housekeeping, and I made a paper headband for the wolf.

The wolf face was fastened on a headband strip.  I used paperclips to hold it on instead of stapling the headband so it could fit a variety of children.  I loved hearing the children acting out the story – they used such great language and remembered so many details.

When I told the story I always said that the wolf shoved Grandma in the closet.  When we read the book by James Marshall the children always noticed that in his version, the wolf ate Grandma.  I like the G-rated version better myself!  There are lots of versions of this story available and it is fun to read and compare them.

This story also lends itself very well to talking about strangers.  This was part of our Social Studies unit so it fit right into our curriculum.  I made a simple outline of a child wearing a hooded sweatshirt and each child glued his/her face onto the picture.

Then I gave them a picture of a wolf and talked about how he was a stranger.

Then we talked about how scary the wolf looked and that I knew they were all too smart to talk to someone that was so scary.  We talked about how strangers don’t always look scary, but that it really is not safe to talk to anyone that they don’t know unless they are with a grownup that they trust.  So we glued a picture of Bob the Builder on the back side of the wolf picture.  I thought that Bob the Builder was a recognizable, friendly character to represent a stranger that did not look scary.

I have started telling Fairy Tales to my grandchildren.  It’s even better than sharing them with Kindergartners!