Do you deserve it?

By Steve Hoggins

This session is based on the story The little red hen. The difference being that in the tale the other characters holds exactly the same position – they don’t want to help.

Resources

3 Puppets

Story generation

Introduce the three characters by name (I used to get the children to choose) and then say that Penguin is going to cook…
Let the children say a few ideas and then weave them into the story… so Penguin wants to make a chicken and chocolate pie. Penguin heads down to the shops (mime walking, getting them to join in) and puts the chicken in the shopping bag (again mime), the flour, the milk, the butter, the chocolate etc.
Finally Penguin pays (mime) and tries to lug the incredibly heavy bag home (mime- you get the idea now) Penguin pauses, wipes the sweat off her brow and calls out to bear and monkey, “This is really heavy, can you help me?”
Monkey says, “No, nopey not.”
Bear says, “Yessirie, yep.”

Task question:

Why did monkey say ‘no’?
Is that (what monkey said) right?
Why?
What should monkey say?
Why did Bear say ‘yes’?
Is that (what Bear said) right?
Why?
What should monkey say?

One of the benefits of using puppets is that you can ask the child to listen to the puppets’ idea and repeat it to the class (Monkey says no because he’s tired) and then ask the child if they agree with monkey or not. Often the child will not agree with the monkey (no, ‘cos it’s nice to help) demonstrating that the child can consider two opposing points of view, acknowledge that both of them have reasons and make a choice.

Continue the story (optional)

So bear and Penguin carry the bags home from the shop and Penguin gets the kitchen ready…the bowls, the spoons, emptying the shopping… and realises that there is a terrific amount of work to do so she pauses, wipes the sweat of her brow and calls out to bear and monkey, “This is a lot of work, can you help me?”

Task questions:

Does anyone help?
Why do they help?
Should they help?

Final part of the story:

Penguin finally puts the dish in the oven and waits for the ‘ping!’ that tells us it is ready…..PING!...
The dish comes out. Everybody gives it a good smell. Can you smell the food? What does it smell of?
Penguin tucks a napkin in to her collar and gets ready to gobble the the food. Just then Bear pipes in with “Could I have some?” shortly followed by monkey, “Could I have some?”
Penguin stops. Looks at bear. Looks at monkey. And then looks at her food.