The Little Red Hen Story-related Math Pack for Preschoolers

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The Little Red Hen is a classic story with a predictable text structure about a little red hen who discovers wheat seeds and decides to plant them to make bread. Today, I’m using Carol Ottolenghi’s version.

The Little Red Hen Story-related Math Pack for Preschoolers

Every storybook allows you to create activities for most, if not all, domains, and Math is no different. That is why I made a FREE 16-page pack for The Little Red Hen story with ten activity sets. This pack will help preschoolers develop creative and critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, understanding sizes and shapes, one-to-one correspondence, number recognition, counting, hand-eye coordination, fine motor, and adding skills. You can download it at the end of this post.

The Little Red Hen Math Pack

There are many math activities you can do using this storybook. These are just some ideas you can use with your preschoolers in your classroom or at home for fun and educational math activities related to this beautiful story.

Shape Match

This pack comes with one sheet with five different sets of shapes. Children have to observe the shapes and trace a line between the same ones using a pencil, crayon, or marker.

If you want to reuse the activity, print the sheet on white cardstock and laminate it, or place it on a dry-erase pocket and have the children use a dry-erase marker to trace the lines.

Counting Mats

The pack includes one sheet with two counting mats and two distinct dice, one with dots and one with numbers. Print the sheets on white cardstock to reuse the activity, cut out the mats and dice, and laminate them for durability.

You can have one or two students play this activity. To play, each child rolls one or two dice, identifies the number, and finds the same number in his/her mat to cover using bingo chips, mini erasers, buttons, pom-poms, or bread and hen mini toys, or any other small manipulatives. If the number is already covered, the child loses the turn, and the other child rolls the dice. The winner is the child who covers all his/her numbers first.

Since you probably have preschoolers at different levels of development, you can use one of the dice or two of each, depending on how challenging you want to make the activity for a particular preschooler. Of course, you can also use actual dice instead.

Counting

Counting is an essential skill preschoolers need to learn because it helps them understand the meaning of numbers and is the base for all the other number concepts. We must give preschoolers plenty of opportunities to do hands-on counting and number-related activities.

The math pack includes two types of counting activities. These activities are great for helping preschoolers work on their one-to-one correspondence, number recognition, counting, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and adding skills.

I’ve included two sheets with two different yet similar activities each. In the first one, children count the objects, circle the correct number, and write that number in the line using a pencil, crayon, or marker.

The second one is simpler. Children have to count and write the number in the square.

If you want to use these activities multiple times instead of once, print the sheets on white cardstock and laminate them, or place them on a dry-erase pocket and have the children complete the activities using a dry-erase marker.

Memory Game

This game strengthens the children’s concentration and memory, and it helps them work on one-to-one correspondence and creating sets.

This pack includes two sheets with nine cards each, featuring the animals and other items in the story. For each set of the game, print each sheet twice using white cardstock. Cut out and laminate the cards to make them last longer.

This game can be played as an individual activity or with a partner. Keep it super simple and have the children place the cards face down. Each child has to select a card randomly and try to match the selected card with its double. The child that matches the most cards wins the game.

Circle the Larger or Smaller on the Row

Preschoolers must develop visual discrimination to identify and recognize similarities and differences in sizes, shapes, letters, numbers, colors, and positions. This essential skill will allow them to do necessary activities in life.

This pack contains two size discrimination activities: one to circle the larger in the row and the other the smaller. Both activities come with one sheet and three strips each. Children should look at the pictures, select which is bigger or smaller according to the page they are using, and circle the different ones using a pencil, crayon, or marker.

You can either keep the sheets together or divide the strips. If you want to reuse the activity, print the sheets on white cardstock and laminate them, or use a dry-erase pocket and have the children complete the activities using a dry-erase marker.

Which is Different?

Another way to help children practice visual discrimination is to present objects in a row, some precisely alike and one different, for them to identify.

This pack comes with one sheet with four strips. You can either keep the sheet together or divide the strips.

Like the previous activities, if you want to reuse this one multiple times, print the sheets on white cardstock and laminate them or use a dry-erase to protect them. Then, have children use a dry-erase marker to draw a circle around the different pictures instead of a pencil, crayon, or marker.

Mini Puzzles

Puzzles are very beneficial to preschoolers because they help children develop multiple skills, such as fine motor skills, spatial awareness, problem-solving, logical thinking, concentration, visual perception, self-esteem, and social skills.

I’ve included four mini puzzles in the pack, one for each animal in the story. Print the sheets on white cardstock, cut them on the dotted lines that differ in each mini-puzzle, and laminate them for durability. You can place them together in a small basket for children to work on or divide them. Use just judgment according to your children’s developmental stages.

Graphing

Graphing can help preschoolers develop counting, visual organization, classification, one-to-one correspondence, logical thinking, problem-solving, and data analysis skills.

This pack includes one sheet with pictures of the four animals in the story. Print multiple copies of the sheet on white cardstock, cut the circles out, and laminate them for durability. You can use them to have the children vote using different concepts. For example:

Which animal do they like best?
Which of the animals works harder?
Who would share if you were The Little Red Hen?

Use the pictures to graph their answers on a chart paper and discuss the results.

Estimation Jar

Estimation activities are crucial to help children understand and decide if a solution is reasonable and if they should act, using just a few facts. To do this activity:

Get a transparent jar and place wheat seeds in it. Show the children the jar and ask them to guess/estimate how many seeds might be in it.
Record their answers on a chart paper.
Open the jar and count the seeds together.
Show them their estimates on the chart paper and ask them if their estimates were the same, more or less than the actual number of seeds.
Ask them if they know the difference between their estimate and the number of seeds.
Explain.
Use the opportunity to create simple addition and subtraction problems.

Other Ideas

You don’t have to limit yourself to using only these printables. You can also do many other activities related to this story. Some other activities I can suggest are:

Have the children use mini plastic animals, like those in the story, to count and take away, make sets, and divide them by size, color, and pattern.

Have them try white and whole wheat bread, vote for their favorite, and make a graph with it.

They can also vote if they agree with the Little Red Hen’s decision to eat the bread all by herself and make another graph.

Have your preschoolers use a ruler, measuring tape, connecting cubes, or any other measuring item to measure a loaf of bread. Write each child’s results on an easel pad and discuss them.

Cut out paper slices of bread and write numbers on them. Have preschoolers choose a slice, identify the number written on it, place it on the table, count out the same amount of small manipulatives, and place them on top of the slice of bread.

Teach ordinal numbers (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, etc.). As you read the book a first or second time, recap the order of the process from the hen finding the seeds until she ate the bread without reading the story.

Get a transparent plastic jar and place wheat seeds in it. Show the children the jar and ask them to guess/estimate how many seeds might be in it.

Hen Related Books

You can always read and add other versions of The Little Red Hen and related books to your library at different centers to give children a comprehensive learning experience and variety.

These books can be found at your local library, used book store, or on Amazon. To add them to your collection, you can use my affiliate links embedded in the titles for immediate access.

The Little Red Hen by Byron Barton.
The Little Red Hen by Jerry Pinkey.
The Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone.
The Little Red Hen by Little Golden Books.
The Hen Who Sailed Around the World: A True Story by Guirec Soudee
Henrietta, the Hen Who Wouldn’t Come In by J B Allen.
Hattie Peck by Emma Levey.
What is Love, Mommy Hen? by Kate Kos.
Chicken Coop Chaos by Nancy Tavares.
Gwen the Rescue Hen by Leslie Crawford.

Pin It For Later

If you are in a rush and don’t have time to read the post and download the printable but want to save it, pin this to your Math board on Pinterest for later.

You can use this pack alone or in combination with the activities I offer in The Little Red Hen Literacy Pack, which are also free. Remember that math should be connected to literacy, science, or any other domain for a more comprehensive and complete educational process. They intermingle and complement each other. To download The Little Red Hen Math pack, click on the link below and type your email.

Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.

Love,

P.S. Let me know if these activities work for you, and if you want to see an article or a printable about how to make something specific, please let me know, and I will try my best to create it for you.