If You Give A Pig A Pancake by Laura Numeroff

If You Give A Pig A Pancake is written by Laura Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond. I absolutely love these stories: If You Give A Moose A Muffin, If You Give A Dog A Donut, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, etc. This story follows a pig and a young girl. The girl gives a pig a pancake and she then asks for some maple syrup. Once she gets the syrup, she becomes sticky and wants to take a bath. She then wants bubbles and then asks for a toy. It keeps going on until she hangs wallpaper at the end. She gets sticky and it reminds her of the maple syrup which makes her want a pancake.

 This story is great for young children. It's a very simple story, but very fun for them. It also has a chain reaction concept within the story. If you give the pig a pancake... she'll want maple syrup. Because she gets sticky, she wants to take a bath, etc. I have had students use this concept and make their own. For example, if you give a snake chicken nuggets, he will want ketchup to go with it.

Example of how students can use a map to see the chain of events

 Children also like to act this story out. Have students take turns being the pig or the girl and act out parts of the story. I also like to use the scenes in the story and have the class put the events in order from first to last. You can do this as a whole group, small group, or individually. I personally like to have my students do this activity as a small group, and then come back as a whole to see how they have done.

Children will put the circles in order here.

These are cut out so that the students can put them in order.

  With young children, I also like to do art projects with If You Give A Pig A Pancake. I have had my students make pig masks before. I also had students make their own kinds of pancakes using paint, paper plates, and paper. They can add syrup, butter, chocolate chips, blueberries, strawberries, whipped cream, etc. All fake,  of course! If you nanny, babysit, or have your own children, you should make pancakes to eat! I taught at a preschool for a few years and we were allowed to cook. I easily got some microwavable pancakes, and my students loved them for snack!

Pig masks

Fun pancakes

If you would like to have students watch a video of someone reading the story, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfDcZm-SCo

This is a video of "Storytime with Ms. Becky" where she reads the story.

You can also go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogRE_gol_EU
to watch/listen to the story.

                                                                   HAPPY READINGS!

                                                                             Jenna