When I first started teaching, I would read a story, close the book and ask “what happened first?”… and get 14 different answers, none of them first. One would tell me about the end, another would tell me about his dog. I had no clue how to teach a 4-year-old to put a story in order, and nobody had ever shown me.
It wasn’t until I started giving my students the story in pictures they could hold and move around that it actually clicked. A story they already know by heart helps a ton too. The Little Red Hen is perfect for this because every part of it repeats, and preschoolers LOVE yelling “Not I!” with the animals.
Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase through these links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I only recommend products that I personally use and love. Thank you for supporting my blog!
Sequencing is just putting the events of a story in the order they happened. In Pre-K that means a child can retell a story from start to finish using words like first, next, then and last.
It matters because retelling in order is one of the first ways little ones show they understood what they heard, which is what the comprehension pillar of literacy is all about. It also builds the oral language they’ll lean on later when they start writing their own stories.
The story follows one clear chain of jobs. The hen plants the wheat, cuts it, takes it to the mill and bakes the bread, and each job comes with the same question and the same “Not I!” answer. That repetition gives kids a pattern to hang the order on, and the ending (who gets to eat the bread) is super memorable.
Any version works. The Paul Galdone version is the one we use in the curriculum.
1. Read it once just for fun. Don’t stop to ask questions the first time. Let them enjoy it and join in on the “Not I!” parts.
2. Introduce the sequencing words. Hold up 4 fingers and say “first, next, then, last” while you touch each one. Have them say it back with you a couple times. These are the words they’ll use for every story from here on.
3. Reread and pause after each job. Ask “what did the hen do first?” and point to the picture in the book while they tell you. Write first, next, then and last across a piece of chart paper and quick-sketch each job under it as you go (a seed, the wheat, a bag of flour and a loaf of bread). Your drawings do NOT have to be cute… mine definitely aren’t.
4. Act it out. Pick one student to be the hen and a few to be her animal friends, and have the whole class shout “Not I!” with them. The hen acts out each job in order while everyone says the sequencing word out loud. Stop and ask “what does she have to do before she can bake the bread?” (This is where you hear the real thinking.)
5. Have them retell on their fingers. In partners or a small group, each child holds up one finger at a time and tells what the hen did first, next, then and last. Leave your chart paper up so they can peek at it. Don’t worry if it’s messy at first… it gets sooo much better by the second or third story.
6. Finish with the cut and glue page. Students cut the pictures, glue them in order and tell you the story one more time. That’s it!
Start with just 2 pictures (first and last) for younger kids, then add more when they’re ready. Act it out with a stuffed animal hen or a puppet if you have one, since kids remember what they move. Use the same sequencing words every single time so they become second nature. Reread the book a few days in a row too… the retell gets better each time.
If a child gets stuck, ask “what did she need to do before she could bake the bread?” instead of telling them the answer.
Once they’ve got it with The Little Red Hen, use the same steps with another story. Some of my favorite books for sequencing are in my fall picture books list, like Down by the Barn and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves.
This sequencing lesson is included in the Letter H Activities Letter of the Week Lessons pack. This letter H week is just 1 of 26 weekly units in my Pre-K Letter of the Week curriculum. Every week has a book, a comprehension skill (sequencing, characters, setting, cause and effect and more), plus phonemic awareness, phonics, handwriting and hands-on centers, all in about 30 minutes a day.
The lessons are fully scripted, so you open the plan, grab the book and teach. It works in a pre-K classroom or at home with your own little one.
Get the Pre-K Letter of the Week Curriculum here
