Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for The Little Red Hen will find this post helpful. It includes resource recommendations, free teaching ideas, and information about the book. You’ll have everything you need to deliver engaging interactive read aloud lessons based on this story.
With themes of resiliency, advocacy, responsibility, and emotions, this The Little Red Hen picture book by Paul Galdone is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your classroom too! Learn more about this book below!
Engage Your Students with The Little Red Hen Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of The Little Red Hen. You can find it in the section below.
- Check out the teaching ideas for reading comprehension strategies, grammar topics and social emotional learning skills that can be taught using this children’s book.
- Download the book companion to make lesson planning simple with The Little Red Hen reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
THE LITTLE RED HEN SUMMARY
This timeless story shares morals of teamwork, kindness, and cooperation. In a small, cozy house lived a dog, cat, mouse, and hen. While the other animals rested, the hen had to do all of the housework.
The hen had to clean dishes, wash windows, and mend the clothes. When she asked for help picking up the wheat, no animal wanted to help. No one helped when ground the wheat into flour, either.
The hen used the flour to bake a cake, which entranced all the animals in the house. But when they asked for a piece, she told them that since they did not help, they do not get to eat it. From that day on, whenever there were chores to do, all of the animals worked together.
THE LITTLE RED HEN LESSON PLAN IDEAS
Each of our 400+ Starts With a Story book companions come with a teacher’s guide to make lesson planning quick and easy, printable worksheets and digital resources that cover ALL of the standards-based reading comprehension skills.
When it comes to writing lesson plans and finding activities for The Little Red Hen, we’ve already done all of the heavy lifting for you.
We found this book was especially good at teaching the topics listed below.
READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
The text-based The Little Red Hen reading comprehension questions focus on:
- retelling
- sequencing
- analyzing character
- making connections
- author’s purpose
- visualizing
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- resiliency
- advocacy
- responsibility
- emotions
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- adjectives
- pronouns
- verbs
- conjunctions
THE LITTLE RED HEN ACTIVITIES
You’ll receive all of the following resources aligned to the story:
- comprehension questions
- 30 writing prompts with themed paper
- vocabulary activities
- word study print & go activities
- ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
- social emotional learning discussion topics
- graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
YOU HAVE 2 OPTIONS! WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK COMPANION?
BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
What are the reading levels for The Little Red Hen?
- Lexile® Measure: 430L
- Guided Reading Level: J
- DRA Level: 16-18
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 1.9-2.2
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Paul Galdone. It was illustrated by Paul Galdone.
What genre is The Little Red Hen?
It is a fiction book. You may want to check out our genre activities or read our blog post, How to Teach Genre to Elementary Students.
How many pages are in the book?
The story is 48 pages long.
