Three Little Pigs

CBSE, English, Class - I, Unit -1

Who's Afraid of The Big Bad Wolf

Warm up game: The lesson began with the game Thiri, thiri, pandham (Run, run, catch me). The students sit in a circle, one student with a handkerchief runs around the circle calling “Run run catch me”. He drops the kerchief behind any student at random, who then begins to chase him. If the runner completes three rounds without being caught, he/she is the winner.

EXPLORE :
Animal sounds: The teacher makes the sounds of different animals and acts them (like dog’s bark or cat’s mew). Then asks the students to produce any animal/bird sound with actions of their own and the rest of the class follows.

Lol lol says the dog - Mew mew says the cat - May
may says the goat - Maa maa says the cow
Quack quack says the duck - Kaka says the crow

Reflection: When I produced the sounds of different animals, students were able to identify them easily. We also talked about these animals

– e.g. where they were generally found, what they ate etc. They were also able to name animals that are not commonly found around their homes – e.g. lion, fox. 

Wild and domestic animals:

From the discussion on animals, that lived on either around home or forest- the terms domestic and wild animals were introduced to the children. Afterwards, two children were made to stand at two corners of the room- one represented wild and the other domestic. As I called out the names of different animals, the group had to run to the appropriate corner ‘wild’ or ‘domestic’.

Reflection: Most of the times I called out the names in Tamil and then posed the question to the kids whether they knew its English equivalent. When it came to hippopotamus and fish, the children were confused because they felt ‘these animals lived in water’ and could not be categorized as wild or domestic. Again when it came to birds, the common answer was ‘they live on the tree/ sky’ and could not categorize them into domestic/ wild.

Comparing straw and stick houses:
I divided the class into two groups – one group was given straws and the other was given sticks.They had to stick these on paper and shape it in the form of a roof. This helped set the background for the story (the strength of the three houses made of straw, stick and bricks)

Reflection: Once they had completed the same I explained to them the difference between straw roof and stick roof. I carried a small amount of straw which may have made it difficult for childrento do the comparison. When we do this in class, we can take more straw (hay) to class and put them on a table and try to blow it down which can make children to comprehend the concept better.

EXPLAIN:
Story video: I played a Disney video about “Three Little pigs”.

Reflection: The children seemed to enjoy the video. They started imitating the characters e. g. one of the children pretended to play the violin.

Story narration:
I narrated the story with the help the properties like straw (pasted in paper), stick (pasted in paper), stone, mask of pig, mask of wolf. Reflection: Initially, I narrated it in Tamil and then in bi-lingual. Here I stressed on words like – three-little-pigs, one day, big-bad-wolf, straw, stick, house, blow down etc). While detailing out, the children couldn’t recall some aspects, so I played the video again.

Coloring the pictures
I gave them a worksheet with the character and objects present in the story and asked them to color it with crayons.

Reflection: They enjoyed coloring the worksheet and kept asking me to help them choose colors for their pictures.

Reinforcing numbers: I asked them a few questions about numbers and gave them a worksheet with objects they see in their day-to-day life. They have to count the number of these objects in their house and fill the worksheet. '

Reflection: The students were able to count the objects and give the answer. They did theworksheet in their home as well.

ELABORATE:
Enacting the story:
Students are asked to enact the story (they can use Tamil mixed with English) with the help of the props. Repetitive lines in the story can be sung rhythmically. 

I built a straw house.
I built a stick house.
I built a brick house.

Whose is afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
I will huff…I will puff…I will blow your house down

After this I held a puppet show for the kids on the same story followed by a role play. The puppet show comprised of two glove puppets narrating the story with me hiding behind a screen. This activity caught the children’s interest, they were amused by the puppet show and was eager to listen as well as demonstrate one by themselves later.

Reflections: The puppet show I conducted were more or less based on the textbook version of the story which had many details missing. When I was performing, children jumped in to fill the gaps in the story. E.g. the part where the wolf jumps into the turpentine mix on the stove in the fireplace.

 Story building using pictures :The children were given the worksheets they had colored earlier. They were asked to try and arrange the story in its sequence.

Reflection: I demonstrated this to the class the first time. Then I divided the children into two groups and asked them to repeat the same. Both the groups seemed to connect more to the video than to the textbook story. They talked about how the pigs danced, and how the wolf came dressed as a sheep etc. With the video, they seemed to have understood the story very well.

Role play

 Students then performed the story in the form of a role play

Reflection: The students were eagerly participated in the role play. During the role play they made use
of the roof models from the previous day. Many kids confused between BRICK and PIG. I explained that the house that pigs built could be called PIG House since it belonged to them, however the house was made of BRICKS.

EVALUATE:
I asked them to sing the song. They also filled a worksheet matching the animals with their habitats.
 

Overall reflection:
The students enjoyed the story in different ways - video, puppet show, role play, story building etc. Since it is std-1, more activities were given for listening and speaking. Colouring activity and writing were given here and there. Body movement activities were designed to enrich their motor skills. The video with its visuals and music left a good impact on students. * This lesson was tried out in a children’s home in Pondicherry with a group of early primary children.