Chicken Run Movie: Educational Activities and Games for 2 to 5 Year Olds

Let's face it, kids love movies, but it's been proven that they should watch no more than 2 hours of TV a day. So why not combine their love of a movie and activities that will help them learn and grow? Following are suggestions for the movie Chicken Run released in 2000. These activities would also work well for preschool classes and party games for this age group.

Watch the movie

Let your kids watch the show while you prepare the activities for the rest of the day or attend to other responsibilities.

Paper Planes

In the movie the chickens escape by building a plane and flying over the farm fence. Get out some paper and make some paper airplanes with your child. If you want to try some different ways of folding planes there are some great suggestions on this site: http://www.bestpaperairplanes.com/. Find out which planes will fly the farthest, do the most tricks, fly the highest etc.

Read A Book

Find a book that talks about how an egg hatches. Read it with your child then teach them this rhyme:Hickety, Pickety My black hen,She lays eggs for gentlemen,Gentlemen come everyday,To see what my black hen doth lay.

You can also read a few other books that feature chickens, hens or eggs. One of the best known stories is the Little Red Hen. Other options are:

• With Love, Little Red Hen by Alma Flor Ada and Leslie Tryon
• Hen's Pens (Easy Words to Read) by Jenny Tyler and Stephen Cartwright
• First the Egg (Caldecott Honor Book and Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book (Awards)) by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
• Green Eggs & Ham by Dr Seuss
• Horton Hatches the Egg (Classic Seuss) by Dr. Seuss

Egg Hunt

Dig out some plastic eggs from Easter and hide them throughout the house. Put a prize in one of the eggs. Have your child pretend to be a farmer going out to gather all the eggs from the hen house. Give them a bag or a basket to hold the eggs and let them wander around trying to find them all.

Chicken Art

Have your child put their hand on a piece of red construction paper. Trace around their hand and cut it out for them (or let them cut it out if they are old enough). Cut out a circle from a brown piece of paper and glue the hand to the circle so that it looks like a chickens upper feather. Draw a face on the circle and glue an orange beak on. Let your child add other decorations.