Here is a range of drama ideas for using the story of the Little Red Hen with children.

All of these examples can be used with any story

Story circle

Sitting in a circle each person tells a short part of the Little Red Hen story and then passes the story on to the next person to continue. A toy chicken can be passed around to give status to the storyteller and to put them in charge.  If a child struggles with their section of the story the teacher can freeze the game and ask another to help them out.  This technique can be used to retell a story that children know well.  It can show how many different variations there are of famous stories. 

Whoosh: Physicalising a story

Everyone sits in a circle to begin. The children become the characters and the objects in the Little Red story you tell it.  It encourages the children to listen carefully to the storyteller and interact spontaneously with their peers. The children sitting in the circle become the audience when they are not in the centre taking part. It is an active introduction to a story in which everyone is able to take part, works well with large groups and it is a practical and speedy method of exploring a story.

Stories in a box

Some of the significant events, places and characters from the Little Red Hen story are represented by an object and placed in a box or tin.  As the story is told the storyteller gets each object out as the moment or person or event it represents is mentioned.  This could be teacher led or be a free play activity left for children to use as they want.  Try observing the children as they play.  Do they order the story or use the repetitive language?  Do they begin to change it or add different animals?

Creating Story Places in the Classroom

Whilst working on the story of the Little Red Hen, you can designate an area to transform into the farm.  Simply re-arranging the furniture and building with the children their version of it can be a very useful way of building belief in a fictitious context.  Cardboard boxes could be used to represent the different places that she travelled to.  Each one could be decorated and cut so it opens out like a doll’s house.

Still Image or Freeze Frame

This is the creation of an image/freeze frame using a group or pairs of children to capture a particular moment from the story.   They could chose which animals they want to be based on the numbers in their group or they could decide on an activity that the animals are doing when they meet Little Red Hen.   

Hot Seating  

Try interviewing the Little Red Hen or the animals from the story.  The class can decide what they want to ask you when you’re in role beforehand.

Soundscaping

To develop atmosphere and build belief, children can create the sounds belonging to the farm, and chorally build the atmosphere with you as conductor.  You can play with volume by using a stick to lower or raise up.  You could story tell the break of day on the farm and all the animals waking up.  Ask children to groups themselves into similar animals.

Physicalising a farm

Using a big piece of blank paper and some big chalks or pens ask the children to help make a class map of the farm.  Start with the places and animals in the story of the Little Red Hen and then ask them to add their own ideas.
Use a picture of a farm as a stimulus and ask the children to become the different places on a farm. They can become buildings, animals, or features on the landscape. Take a volunteer on a walk through the garden, or let a child be the guide.

Role play

Role-play can take many different forms and serve as many purposes. As well as feeding the imagination and encouraging empathy, it is a powerful way of developing social skills. As well as the more formal role play situations in the classroom it is good to make room for role play where the children themselves have set the context and it is up to the adults to gently observe and support the learning.

But imaginative play is more than children having fun. It has a crucial part to play in their intellectual and social development. The ability to make one thing stand for another, to picture things that are not there, are critical features in the growth of both thought and language.

Considerations for the Early Years practitioner during role play:

• Hold back and observe the learning, styles of learning and creative development before intervening.  In this way you can be sure that your intervention is not crushing the story they are telling or enacting.  Your role can be to extend or challenge in a focused way if you have been watching an encounter.
• Ask focused, open ended, not closed questions. Role play does not have a right answer.

Drama games to stimulate the children’s imaginations

The Imagination Game

Bring out a ‘prop’, which can be anything – a tube, a plastic plate, a basket or anything that can be transformed into something else using the power of the imagination.  Pass it around the group (not a whole class) sat in a circle.  Each child takes turns to come up with an idea of what it can be by demonstrating it or telling. 

The Story Basket

Use a basket of props and have the children pick out one at a time and use it to add to the next part of a made up story.  You can pick the first thing to begin the story but ask the children questions so that they first generate who it belongs to or where it might have been found or indeed what it might be. This is something that can be alongside a theme.  If you wanted to create a circus story then you might pick related objects like a clown toy, a red nose, an animal or a bit string or rope.

The Mime Mat

Have a mat or a marked out space on the floor and allow each child the opportunity to act something or pretend to be something and allow the other to guess.  This works best with some preparation around mime.  A good warm up for this is a game called ‘What’s in the box? You imagine a box and place it in front of you, open it up and carefully mime taking something out and using it.  You can produce a hair brush or a banana or maybe a pair of shoes.  When the group have had the chance to call out what they think it is you put it back, close the box and take it to the next person who would like a go.  All of the above works well around a theme – animals or circus perhaps.