Ask students to decide what each would use - straw, wood, brick, or a
combination of two or all three - to build a house for themselves. Have each
child record this decision by marking his or her initials in the region on the Venn diagram that they believe shows this preference on the Pigging Out activity sheet.
On the classroom floor, form three large intersecting loops of yarn to match
the Venn Diagram on the activity sheet. Have each child
stand inside the loop or loops that he or she believes represents the preference
stated above. Discuss the preferences of the class as a whole.
Use the Pigging Out: Venn Diagram overhead transparency = to tabulate the
results by putting each child's initials in the appropriate place.
Each child
should then compare the location marked on the page with the place he or she was
standing in the yarn circles. Discuss what it means to have a child in each of
the seven regions. Where would a child stand who chooses none of the three
materials? [Outside the three circles.]
For an experience involving estimation and graphing, ask students to recall
that the wolf "huffed and puffed" a number of times in the story. Have each
student cut, fold, and tape the house pattern on the Pigging Out Activity Sheet.
Ask the students to estimate how far they can blow the house
across the floor. Have groups of four record estimates and then conduct the
experiment. What would happen if these houses were made with different
materials, such as construction paper, newspaper, or interlocking blocks?
To reinforce measurement and map skills, have students create a map within
the boundary on the second page of the Pigging Out Activity Sheet. Next they mark with an "sh," "wh," and
"bh" - for straw house, wood house, and brick house, respectively - where they
think the pigs in the story built their houses. They should also indicate with a
"w" where they think the wolf might have lived. Identify a standard unit of
measure, such as a centimeter cube, with which to measure distances on the map.
Have pairs of students compare their measurements and their maps to explore
similarities and differences. For example, two students with similar-looking
maps would have similar distances between houses, but it is possible that two
students with similar distances between houses may have very different-looking
maps. Ask pairs of children to sit back-to-back and have one child describe his
or her map while the other student attempts to draw it next to his or her map on the second page of the Pigging Out Activity Sheet. Have students answer the questions
on the activity sheet and discuss their results with the class.
