Red Week, The Little Red Hen, and a whole lot of Crazy Chickens!

I warned them. I read the hen story to them and said, “The next time you come to school, we will be looking for good helpers. Are you good helpers? Do you help at home?” Emily said, “I help my mom cook bacon!” “Nice!” Benjamin said, “I help with dishes!” “Wow! That is a good helper!” “I pick up my socks!” said Drew. “Good job!”

I told them I was going to bring in some kernels of wheat. They could taste it. They could bite it. I told them I had a grinder that could crush the wheat into flour. “Would you like to see that?” “Yeah!” I told them we were going to make bread, but only if they could be good helpers.

So, in they came. First, we had to put them to work tracing and cutting out their handprints. That would be the perfect wobbly top for a chicken head. We also gave them white paper eyeballs to cut out and a bright yellow beak. Just below the handprint was the picture of a red waddle to complete the cutting list.

“Hurry, hurry! Come see the wheat. I need good helpers! Come help me make bread!” “It’s crunchy!” said Tallin. Everyone trickled over. Miss Kristin stayed to help the last cutters finally find their way over. We watched the wheat drop down to grind down into the hole. “Oooh!”

I put on my Little Red Hen hat. “Who will help me make the bread?” A resounding, “I will!!!” And they did, scooping up mounds of flour, adding sugar and oil to the warm water and yeast floating in the bowl. Everyone took a turn. The bread churned and churned.

We dumped it onto a greased cookie sheet and divided it into square blobs. Everyone put on a bib and we sprayed their hands with vegetable oil and let them knead away. “Make it like a big hot dog! Lay it in the pan like this!” I carefully folded in a beautiful mound of dough. “Now, give it a nice pat and we will send it off to the oven!” Some executed it perfectly. Others stretched it into snakes or flattened it like a pancake, but eventually, it all got wadded up into the pans and so it began to rise and form fluffy puffy loaves.

We talked about red and named an apple, a stop sign, a fire truck and an apple at least five more times. “Yes, we said that! Yes, apples are red!” Then I sang, “Red, red! It’s the color I see! If you are wearing red, then show it to me! Stand up and turn around! Show me your red! And then… sit down!” We danced. We shook around! We dropped to the floor with a criss-cross, applesauce (crossing our legs sitting flat). Then we sang our red song…

(To the tune of Are You Sleeping?)
“I like red! I like red!
R-E-D! R-E-D!
A fire truck is red!
A stop sign is red!
R-E-D! R-E-D!”

We practiced writing a two, “Around and back on the rail-road track! Two, two, two, two, two, two, two, two. TWO! TWO!
We listed things that are two. Two eyes. Two ears. Two elbows. We found lots and lots of twos.
We discussed our fun sheets, drawing a two. And we found sets of two and colored them. Not three. Not one. “Don’t even think about it!” Only two.

We returned to our hats. We glued our chicken parts on a red plate. We wrote our names on the back. Miss Kristen stapled a strap around the back to fit our heads just right.

We stood in line for a treat and Miss Kristen read us a story.
Then, we could smell the bread! I buttered the tops. They were beautiful loaves, each labeled with names on the bottom. We dropped them into white paper bags that Miss Kristen had written names on.

We put on backpacks. We donned the hats. We took lots of pictures of the hens all in line. So cute! Cluck, cluck! So cute!

Then, we sang our good bye song and hugged them all as they went out the door, “Goodbye little helpers! Goodbye little red hens! Go be good helpers at home!”

The BEST Homemade from scratch Bread!

Little Red Hen Hat Tutorial Here

 Watch our whole day here!