Tag Archives: game

The Four Little Pigs

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the four little pigsLet’s see. There’s a pig in a house of straw, a pig in a house of sticks, a pig in a house of bricks, and a pig on a sailboat. Wait…what?!? A fourth little pig? On a sailboat?

We read Ziggy Piggy and the Three Little Pigs by Frank Asch (Kids Cab Press, 1998). Once there were four little pigs. Ted, Fred, Ned, and Ziggy. Carefree Ziggy invites his brothers to the beach for a swim, but finds them madly fortifying their houses of straw, sticks, and brick. The Big Bad Wolf is in town, and Ted, Fred, and Ned don’t have time to play. So Ziggy goes to the beach by himself. The Big Bad Wolf huffs and puffs and chases Ted, Fred, and Ned to the beach, where they pile onto Ziggy’s raft. But when the Wolf attempts to blow the raft to bits, Ziggy hoists the sail and the four brothers sail away to safety.

We made oatmeal container pigs, and then went searching for sailboat ride tickets in houses of straw, sticks, and brick. You had just a few seconds to find your ticket before the Big Bad Wolf appeared. Story time finished with a ride on a perfectly pig-sized sailboat!

You’ll need:

  • 1 oatmeal container
  • Pink construction paper
  • White construction paper
  • A square of white poster board (approximately 6″ x 6″)
  • A pair of wiggle eyes
  • 1 pink jumbo pom-pom
  • 2 small circles of self-adhesive foam
  • Scissors and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating

For the game, you’ll need:

little pig

To make a pig, wrap an oatmeal container with pink construction paper. The pig’s “shirt” is a 5″ x 18″ piece of construction paper decorated with markers. Cut a pair of “sneakers” out of poster board, decorate them with marker, then hot glue the sneakers to bottom of the oatmeal container. Use extra pink paper to make ears and arms. We offered a selection of patterned tape to liven things up, but you can also just stick with markers.

To make the face, hot glue the wiggle eyes to the oatmeal container (or draw eyes with markers). Hot glue a pink jumbo pom-pom on for the nose, and use 2 self-adhesive foam circles for nostrils. In the above photo, however, you’ll notice the pig has a pink cotton ball nose. So why do I suggest a jumbo pom-pom? THIS is why…

uh oh noseAs time passes, the cotton ball sloooowly unfurls, leaving your pig with a droopy nose. Definitely use a pom-pom.

And now for the game, which requires a set of 3 houses, a Big Bad Wolf, and sailboat. Marissa and I snagged three big boxes from the recycle bin, charged up our hot glue guns, and started building. In addition to the decor in the front, there is a small door cut into the back of each box. This is so later, during the game, I could sneak the sailboat ride tickets into the houses undetected.

house of strawhouse of stickshouse of bricksI drew a Big Bad Wolf on a piece of poster board, and taped him to a piece of PVC pipe. I tried to make him look not too scary. Not sure if I succeeded.

wolfFinally, the sailboat. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Seriously. A shoe box pulled on a string will work great. I just happen to have this awesome sailboat my Dad made for me.

sailboatOriginally, it was used at a Treasure Island event. One of the student groups at the event (Students United for a Responsible Global Environment, to be precise) wanted to demonstrate wind power. So I asked my Dad (hi Dad!) if he could build a sailboat that would roll down a table, propelled by a fan. It worked great!

sailboat at treasure islandOn windy days, we bring the sailboat out of the attic and take it outside. In a brisk breeze, you really have to run to keep up with it!

chasing the shipBut back to pigs. Here’s how we played the Ziggy Piggy game. I lined up the three houses and asked the kids to sit down in front of them. Then one kid covered his/her eyes while I hid a sailboat ride ticket inside one of the houses. When I shouted “Go!” and the kid had 10 seconds to find the ticket before the Big Bad Wolf rose from behind the houses. Sometimes I had to slow the count, but in the end, everyone won.

ticket and the wolfMarissa and I then ushered the kids and their pigs out to the library’s main lobby, where we sat in two groups. Marissa was “Dock 1.” This is where all the pigs gathered. Some distance away, I was “Dock 2,” where all the kids gathered. Between the two docks was the sailboat, rigged up on a loooong string. One by one, Marissa would call out a kid’s name and place his/her pig on the sailboat. The kid would come and stand next to me. Once I confirmed that their pig had a ticket, I would reel in the string, causing the sailboat to whizz over to the kid!

sailing pigWhen story time was over, we drew names to see who was going to take the 3 houses home. The winners are the little girls posing at the start of this post. They were super thrilled!

Ever-Ready

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ever readyFrom sandwiches to personal flotation devices, we’re prepared for whatever picnicking perils come our way. We made a delicious paper picnic lunch for two, and then tested our emergency preparedness with a problem-solving card game. Bust out the marshmallows and the umbrella. Nothing’s going to get in the way of THIS picnic!

We read Ready for Anything! by Keiko Kasza (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2009). Duck wants to go on a picnic, but Racoon is feeling a bit paranoid. What if they get attacked by killer bees? Or fall in a river? What if a terrible storm blows in, they take shelter in a cave, and find a dragon inside?!? Duck counters his friend’s dire predictions with happier ones. What if it’s butterflies instead of bees? What if the river is cool and refreshing? What if they roast marshmallows with the dragon in the cave? Finally, Raccoon agrees to go, but he fortifies himself with all sorts of emergency equipment. At the picnic site, Duck realizes that he forgot the picnic basket. Uh on! A true emergency! Luckily, Raccoon is ready for anything. He’s brought a delicious back-up lunch.

You’ll need:

picnic basket with lunchFirst, the picnic lunch! If your box has a lid, cut the lid and tabs off (if you’re using a tissue box, just cut the entire top off). Decorate the box with patterned tape and color masking tape (or just markers).

To create movable picnic basket handles, punch 2 matching sets of holes in both sides of the box. Next, punch a hole at both ends of your tagboard strips. Curve the strips over the box, line the holes up, and use brass fasteners to attach the handles.

finished picnic basketIf you don’t want moveable handles, simply staple a tagboard strip to the center of the box.

Now for the food! Use construction paper to make two sets of the following picnic items: 2 slices of bread, 1 piece of lettuce, 1 tomato slice, 1 piece of cheese, 1 banana, and 1 cookie circle. Use markers to decorate the banana and cookie. Here’s what our pieces looked like (carefully arranged in what I’ve dubbed the “happy picnic food face”).

happy picnic food faceYou can simply glue the layers of the sandwich together. Or, if you want to add a bit of bulk to it, use little squares of double-sided foam mounting tape between the fillings. Here’s a shot of a square of tape connecting the bread and cheese:

taped sandwichTo make beverages, color the juice label template, then wrap each label around a toilet paper tube. Cut a drinking straw in half, and tape each piece inside a tube.

juice bottlesTuck your lunch in the basket (and don’t forget the napkins!). Your final step is to color the picnic emergency equipment cards from the template. You’ll notice there’s a blank card on the template. That’s just in case you’d like to add another piece of equipment. Like a big bar of chocolate. I’ve definitely had chocolate emergencies.

emergency equipment cardsAfter giving the kids a few minutes to play with their new picnic sets (and there was quite a lot of picnicking going on) I asked them to gather in the story time area. Then, loudly and with lots of drama, I read each scenario from the picnic emergency scenario sheet. The kids had to listen carefully and select the equipment card they thought would solve the problem best.

gameI kept the scenarios very simple, but feel free to create more complicated ones. Or write some that require a double card solution!

Across the Puddle

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woo hooPrepare to embark on an epic journey through a variety of obstacles. Weave in and out of topsy-turvey turtles, dodge two plump pigs, avoid the chomping alligator, and face off with a vacuum cleaner elephant. It’s the world’s biggest puddle…can your little boat make it?

We read The Puddle by David McPhail (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998). One rainy day, a little boy decides to sail his toy boat. He finds a truly enormous puddle, but unfortunately, a frog hijacks his boat. The boy can’t chase after the frog – he’s promised his mother he’ll stay out of puddles. The frog crashes the boat into a turtle just as an alligator shows up and offers assistance. The alligator retrieves the boat, but it’s a wee bit crushed. In the meantime, a pig arrives for a swim and is being quite messy about it when an elephant appears and drinks the entire puddle. This prompts all the animals to yell at her to put the water back. So she does. Quite forcefully. By this time, the sun comes out, the puddle dries up, and the boy heads home for a hot bath. What a day!

You’ll need:

  • 1 small box (I used a 4” x 4” x 4” box – a small tissue box works too)
  • 2 rectangles of (mine were 3″ x 12″)
  • A section of color masking tape
  • 2 toilet paper tubes
  • A selection of construction paper
  • A selection of multicultural construction paper
  • A selection of patterned paper
  • 1 wooden dowel
  • 3 foam beads
  • 1 sails template, printed on white 8.5″ x 11″ paper
  • Hole punch
  • 1 piece of string or yarn (approximately 27″)
  • 1 puddle obstacle course (more on this later!)
  • Scissors, tape, and stapler for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Hot glue

boat with passengersWe’ll begin with the boat! The first steps are exactly the same as this Noah’s Ark balancing game. Cut the lid and tabs off your box (if you are using a tissue box, cut the entire top off). Your box should now be about 3″ tall. Set it aside for a moment. Next, use a marker to draw horizontal lines on 2 rectangles of tag board. This creates the “boards” of your ship. For a bit of color, run a piece of color masking along the top of each rectangle (or just use markers).

sailboat step 1Place both rectangles on top of one another, staple the short ends together, and slide them over the box. Secure them in place with tape or hot glue. This step is really important! If the sides of the boat aren’t attached to the box, the sides will pop off when you yank the boat’s pull string later.

sides of boatNext, wrap a 4″ piece of color masking tape around the top of a wooden dowel, then snip the tape with scissors to create a triangular flag.

sailboat flag stepsPush 3 foam beads on the opposite end of the dowel, then hot glue the foam beads to the bottom of the boat. This is your ship’s mast.

hot glued mastColor and cut the sails from the template, then tape them to the front and back of the mast (we made the sails short so they wouldn’t pull the dowel over, feel free to discard the template and make your own sails if you like). Finally, punch a hole in the front of the boat and knot a piece string through it. Here’s the finished boat with the flag, the sails, and the pull string in place:

finished boatWe made 2 crew members (a person and a frog) using multicultural, construction, and patterned paper. Here’s Marissa’s self portrait, with a froggie friend:

marissa and frogNow for the obstacle course! We snagged 2 huge pieces of cardboard from the recycle bin, and painted them light blue. Interestingly, the paint warped the edges of the cardboard upward, creating “waves.” While the paint was drying, we crafted some animal obstacles. The turtles are tissue paper boxes with green poster board shells, arms, legs, tails and heads.

turtlesThe pigs are large oatmeal containers wrapped with pink construction paper.

pigsThe alligator is the lid of a copy paper box covered in green poster board, with paper cup eyes and poster board teeth.

alligatorThe elephant’s face and nose was constructed out of light blue poster board, and a vacuum hose was inserted in the trunk.

vacuum elephantAfter placing all the obstacles on the cardboard, I used blue masking tape to make directional arrows. I decided not to glue any of the obstacles down (I’d rather have kids send them flying than trip over them).

directional arrowsTo run the course, kids had to navigate their boat through the turtles, ride over some waves, and avoid the pigs (which were rolling all over the place as kids walked on the warped cardboard). Next came chomping alligator (which consisted of Marissa moving the box lid up and down and saying “Chomp! Chomp!” – we’re super high tech here.) Here’s a boat on course:

on courseRight before the finish line, the boats had to pass by the vacuum elephant. That was my job. I would make the elephant suck a toilet paper tube character right out of the boat, and then the kids had to pull it off the end of the vacuum nozzle! Fun!

captured personIMPORTANT! Some kids are afraid of vacuums. I asked vacuum-averse kids to turn their name tag stickers upside down. That was my signal to turn off the vacuum while they completed the obstacle course. It worked great!