The Little Red Hen Book Companion PreK Kindergarten 1st 2nd Grade Special Ed

About this resource

One theme, one week. Read the same story every day at circle time — a little hen plants wheat and asks

the other farm animals to help at each step, and when nobody will, she does every step herself, right

through to baking the bread — then pull one simple activity after the read-aloud each day: sort bread

things from everything else, count eggs, find the letter, put the bread-making steps in order, then build

a craft of the hen's own busy kitchen.

This is a public-domain folktale with many retellings, so this week pairs with **The Little Red Hen** — a

traditional folktale; use any version you already have. Nothing from any one retelling's text or art is

reproduced here; every picture in the file is our own drawing or a licensed picture set.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (58 pages)

• 1 Start Here week plan: what to do after the read-aloud each day, plus what else it practices
• 1 book-and-words page naming the read-aloud as a traditional folktale, an original circle-time chant

("Who Will Help?," written for this unit — no story text is reprinted), and the 9 circle-time

vocabulary words

• 9 smartboard slides for whole-group circle time on a projector or interactive board: the cover art,

name the pictures, sort, count (3 slides), the letter hunt, the life skill in order, and the core word

• 9 circle-time vocabulary cards to cut out and use at the carpet (hen, wheat, bread, cat, dog, duck,

basket, sun, bowl)

• Day 1, Sort (a bread thing, or not?), at 3 levels: Level 1 errorless matching, Level 2 the standard

two-group sort, Level 3 a third group added (a bread thing, a farm animal, or a toy) — 10 cut-and-glue

pieces on every level

• Day 2, Count the eggs, at 3 levels: Levels 1 and 2 count sets of 1 to 5 with a 5-piece numeral strip to

cut and glue; Level 3 counts sets of 6 to 10 and writes the number, no cutting

• Day 3, Letter H, at 3 levels: Level 1 glues 5 matching H's, Level 2 finds H among 10 look-alike letters,

Level 3 says 10 pictures aloud and glues the 5 that start with the /h/ sound

• Writing, at 3 levels: Level 1 traces the big letters, Level 2 traces letters and the word "hen," Level 3

writes the letters and the word independently on primary lines

• Day 4, a life-skill sequencing page ("Make the bread: what comes first?"): 5 picture pieces (4 real

steps — plant the wheat, cut the wheat, mix the dough, bake it — first/next/then/last, plus 1 that does

not belong)

• Day 5, a book craft: color and cut a 6-piece scene (a big hen, an oven, a bundle of wheat, a mixing

bowl, a loaf of bread and a basket — every piece named in the page's own glue instruction, every cut a

straight dashed rectangle) and glue it into her own kitchen scene, never a dinner table — the hen keeps

her own bread; this scene is her kitchen at work, not a meal

• 2 fine motor pages: a tracing-paths page (help the hen find the wheat) and a cutting-practice page (4

strips, easiest first)

• 4 core-word pages for the word of the week, "work": a big word card for the talker or core board, a

12-word find-and-circle grid (6 of the 12 are the target word), a basket to color, and 10 loaves of

bread to cut out and glue into it

• 1 "Who Did What This Week" data page (one row per student, a prompt-level code for each day — handy

for IEP notes and progress reports)

• 1 family letter to send home on Day 1
• Ink-saver twins of 19 picture-based student pages (the craft and pure-coloring pages are color-only) in

outline art for a photocopier, so the color pages above are optional, not required

• 1 "More From Bright Path Sped" page naming a few other theme weeks that pair with this one
• 1 credits page (art and font licenses)

Three Levels On Every Academic Task

Sort, count, letters and writing each come in three levels, marked with a small shape instead of a

number so children don't compare theirs to a neighbor's: a circle for starting (errorless matching), a

square for building (the standard task), a triangle for ready for more (a real step up — a third sort

group, counting 6 to 10 with writing, or beginning sounds).

Cutting Built For Small Hands

Every cutting page carries 5 or more pieces, lined up edge to edge so each cut is one straight line.

Pre-cut them yourself for students who are not cutting independently yet.

Color Or Ink-Saver

Print the color pages, or use the ink-saver twins at the back on a photocopier — most picture-based

student pages have both (the craft and pure-coloring pages are color-only by design).

Who This Is For

Any teacher starting a self-contained preschool or early childhood special education classroom who

wants a whole week of circle time, ready to pull and go: one theme, a different simple activity every

day.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A print-and-go weekly theme unit built around the traditional Little Red Hen folktale. It is not a claim

about any student's work habits or independence, and it does not reproduce any book, its text, or its

artwork — only our own hen, wheat, bread and kitchen pieces are drawn here.