The Three Little Pigs

I have already mentioned in a previous post that reading nursery rhymes and fairy tales to your young child is important. Check my post from January 23, 2009.

Nursery rhymes and fairy tales provide a good base for learning when using the system of going from what you already know to learning something new. This raises the comfort level of the class and increases interest.

One of the five strands of the Ontario science curriculum is Matter and Materials. I used the story of the Three Little Pigs as part of my integration with language for this unit in my grade one class.

Another strand is Structures, and the natural progression for teaching this strand is to begin it after completing Matter and Materials. The Three Little Pigs can be used again as part of "Homes" theme for structures. (Find a book with a different author and illustrator,and read the story again - the class will love it!)

I integrated this science strand with geometry in Math as well. I did this by following up with teaching tangrams. The class loved this activity because I had two books I always read to them: "Grandfather Tang's Story" (A Tale told with Tangrams) by Ann Tompert, and "Three Pigs, One Wolf, and Seven Magic Shapes" by Gail Maccarone.

The story of The Three Little Pigs is not complete until you have also read "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! by A. Wolf" by Jon Scieszka. Your class will love this story!