Inside: A fun Three Little Pigs STEM activity that kids of all ages can enjoy.
The three little pigs fairy tale or nursery rhyme (it’s included in collections of both!) is a classic we all grew up with and eventually share with our kids.
It’s a fun and simple story to share with preschoolers, but also a fun one to revisit during the elementary years.
There are a lot of different versions of the story of the Three Little Pigs you can pick whichever version you want to read along with this activity.
One of my favorite versions of the story is this cute picture book “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf”.
Three Little Pigs STEM Activity
To go along with reading the fairy tale I decided to do a fun STEM activity with my kids.
I first did this activity several years ago when my older two where preschool and kindergarten age. We just recently did the activity again with my younger kids and a preschool group we are part of.
The point of the activity is to have kids try to move their houses (or blow them over).
Supplies
- Straws (for house of straws)
- Popsicle Sticks (for house of sticks)
- Bricks (we used Lego’s for house of bricks)
- tape and/or glue
- small hand held fan
- blow dryer
- printable pigs and worksheet (at bottom of post)
Building the Three Little Pig’s Houses
The first step of this activity is to build the three little pigs houses. One of straw, one of sticks and one of bricks.
When I did this activity with my kids I let them each build their own set of houses. For our preschool group my older two kids built one of each house for us to use.
House of Straw
For the house of straw we used plastic straws. The first time we made these houses my kids used playdough and reusable plastic straws.
This time around we used hot glue and disposable straws. The hot glue made the house heavier than I was planning so if you want a light and easily moved house use tape instead of hot glue.
House of Sticks
Our house of sticks was made with popsicle sticks and tape. Our house this time around was big and heavy.
You could have the kids make smaller houses for them to move more easily. The only size requirement I gave my kids is that their pig (printable at bottom of the post) had to fit inside the house.
House of Bricks
For our house of bricks we used Lego bricks and built a square house. The house didn’t have a roof but worked great for this activity.
If your kids like building the three little pigs houses for this activity another fun one to try is this 3 Billy Goats Gruff STEM Activity.
Testing the Strength of the Houses
Now that the houses are built it’s time for the fun part.
My older two kids they filled out the three little pig worksheet predicting which house would be the hardest to move and what they thought would move each type of house (straw, fan or blow dryer).
To test our houses we put our pigs inside each house and blew through a straw to see if we could get the house to move.
Next we used a hand held fan to see if we could blow our houses. And finally we used the blow dryer (set to cool) to see if we could move our houses.
Depending on how you build your houses and their size you will get different results.
We found through our tests that the straw didn’t move any of our houses, the fan moved the straw one just a little bit, and the blow dryer easily moved the straw and stick houses. But our brick house didn’t move at all!
As we did our tests the older kids kept track on their papers and the younger preschoolers just had fun trying to blow things over.
This was a really fun activity that’s perfect for a preschool group (have the houses pre-made or let them make one type not all three) or for older kids to really get into and do it all.
Free Printable Three Little Pigs STEM Worksheets
The first page of this printable includes three little pigs that can be colored and used as little puppets to put inside your houses. The second page is for predicting and tracking results of the activity.
Please keep this printable for personal and class use only!
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