Kiddie Crafts - The Three Little Pigs

A few months ago, I decided I wanted to start introducing Zaxxon to classic fairy tales.  We'd only read a few, but since they're so central to our society's background I wanted him to be familiar with them.  Hubby helped this endeavor along by giving me the complete set of Fairie Tale Theatre videos for Christmas.  Inspired by this gift, I checked out a copy of The Three Little Pigs from the library, found another version of the story in an anthology we have, and scoured the internet for crafts ideas.

Man, there are some good crafts out there.  I intend to keep doing fairy tales, if only for the ease of the projects.  Lots of homeschool websites have whole units based around them, so there was much less prep work for me, and a wealth of activities to choose from.

Zaxxon also really seemed to enjoy the story, though the wolf worried him.  We played three little pigs A. LOT.  You could really see and hear him working something out in his head.  For now, Big Bad Wolves have supplanted lions as his fear of choice (he used to randomly run into the room calling "a lion's coming!" and we would all have to cower and hide.  Now it's "Big Bad Wolf coming!")

Zaxxon also showed a nice moment of fraternity.  I asked him if Kal'El were to have his house blown down by the big bad wolf, would he allow Kal'El to come hide in his house.  He said yes, and then immediately had to go find his brother and help him escape from the house of sticks (his crib) in order to take refuge in the house of bricks (a big cardboard box they've been playing with for months.)

I was actually surprised by some of the versions of the story.  What I remember is the first two pigs being foolish in their choice of building materials but always escaping to the third pigs house, where they defeat the wolf together.  Many versions have the first two pigs being eaten, and then the wolf tries to trick the third pig into leaving his house a few times before climbing down the chimney.  Funny how many variations there are.

This was a matching game I found online.  There are three pigs on the paper, and cards with the three houses.  You're supposed to match the house to the pig.  Zaxxon had no trouble with this--he was done before I'd even found the glue.

I cut out all the pieces necessary to make three pigs out of paper.  After the matching game I pulled them out, but after attaching the heads Zaxxon insisted he wanted to do this craft with Dada.

So we had to wait until evening to put the pigs together.

The next day we went outside to scavenge for materials to build pig houses with.  Straw (dead grass raked up from the lawn,)

sticks (random twigs from the yard,)

and bricks.  These weren't in the yard, I cut popsicle sticks into small pieces and colored them red the night before.  I put the glue in straight lines, but he lined the bricks up all on his own.

Lastly, we made a wolf out of a paper towel tube.  This is another one I just printed from online.  I love it when crafts are that easy to prepare!

My grandmother's birthday was coming up, so I had Zaxxon make her a card.  I wrote "Nana" on the paper, and he managed to trace it!

Continuing from the pig theme, I formally introduced the letter "P."  Coloring the "P" pictures with the new markers he got for Christmas

Cutting them out.  He's getting a lot better at scissors.  I gave him a strip of pictures and asked him to cut between the pictures, and he did a really good job.  He even held the scissors the right way.

Making a pillow.  This is another one we started during the day, but he insisted he wanted to finish with Dada.

Stuffing the pillow

More "P" crafts, making a pirate

We also made a catapult (for the pirate to fire)

We made one more "P" craft--a penguin with Zaxxon's hands for the wings.  We recently set up stools at our breakfast bar, which we've never done before.  Zaxxon loves eating up here, and wanted to do his crafts up here too.