Little Red Riding Hood Pretend Play

Immerse your children in a classic tale with this Little Red Riding Hood pretend play activity! Pretend play is one of the most important things to cultivate and instill in your child.

It provides children with a great opportunity to bring their ideas to life with their own creative interpretations.

Prepare for Little Red Riding Hood Pretend Play

For this red riding hood pretend play activity you’ll want to make sure you have a few things handy:

A book of the Little Red Riding Hood tale

Though you can use any version of the Red Riding Hood tale for this pretend play, we especially love this version illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman.

The beautiful illustrations really add to the experience and it is a very well written re-telling as well!

Dress-Up Items for Pretend Play

Once you’re done with the story, you’ll want to be able to act out the tale together! Depending on how many kids you have engaging in this activity and which role they want to play, you will need one or both of these items:

A red cloak, towel, or blanket (suggestions on how to make a red cloak are below)
Printed wolf mask (available at the end of the post)

Reading Little Red Riding Hood

Reading is a critical part of becoming an educated, free-thinking person. These reading exercises are formulated to help your child develop a love of reading, as well as the ability to listen to a story and pull out key elements.

Read through the story one time with your child. After you’ve finish the story, you can follow up with these comprehension questions:

Who is the main character of this story, or who is this story all about? Little Red Riding Hood
Who wanted to eat her? The Wolf
Where did the story happen? In the forest or at her grandmother’s house are both acceptable.
Why did Little Red Riding Hood go to the forest? To visit her grandmother.
What did her mother tell her before leaving for her trip? To stick to the path!

If your child is willing to read the story again right away, do so and discuss some of these additional questions. If they are not, take a break and come back to the story later.

Do you think it’s important to listen when a grown up is telling us something? Why? Explain stranger danger at this point, if desired.
Why did Red want to visit her grandmother? Was it a nice thing to do? Helping those in need can be discussed here, and again later.
Who was the “bad guy” in this story? Define “bad guy” if needed. You could also say “villain” if desired.
Who was the hero? Was there someone who saved Red and her grandmother? Who was it? Talk about what a hero is, if needed, and talk about helping those in need. Make sure they understand that a trusted adult should help too until they are grown-ups themselves.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to cover EVERY question all at once. You can bring things up later or during the next reading.

Be mindful of your child and their attention span during this time!

Little Red Riding Hood Pretend Play Activities

Imagination fosters our ability to dream, plan, write, create, play music, and more! These Imagination Play activities will foster creativity and imagination in your child and allow them to grow without limits!

Pretend play immerses children in a story – through their bodies, minds, emotions, language, and more! It also provides them with the chance to practice their speaking skills and improve their pronunciation.

By acting out the words of a story, children make them their own. This also makes the story more memorable.

Costumes for Little Red Riding Hood Pretend Play

Make a cloak!

Take 1 yard of red fabric and coat every edge with Fray Check. This will keep the edges from unraveling during use and washing.

To create the cloak, simply fasten the 2 top corners of the fabric loosely around your child’s neck. Do not make a tight knot, but a loose knot should be fine.

You can use a red (or any color) towel or blanket as a cloak instead! Whatever you have on hand to create a cloak will be great.

Make a wolf mask!

If your child would rather be the wolf, I’ve created a printable wolf mask that you can let them color and cut out.

After they’ve colored and cut it out, punch holes in the places indicated. Then attach some string or elastic through the holes and get to playing!

I didn’t make the wolf a scary wolf, since some kids are very sensitive to such things (like my son!).

If your child has never acted out a story before, walk them through the idea. You may need to re-read the story with them again if it’s been a few days.

There are many different ways to act out this story, here are a few fun examples:

Read the story while your child acts out the scenes.
Have your child narrate the story themselves while acting it out.
Let your child assign roles to you and others in the house, possibly including stuffed toys and so on.
Allow them to play different characters within the story, not just the main character.

Let your child run freely with their ideas! Don’t try to keep them “on track,” if they mesh this story with others they’ve read, that is totally fun too. The important thing here is that they PLAY! You’re providing the inspiration, not a script.

You might also enjoy:

PIN THIS FOR LATER

Grab this member’s only download

This download is part of our member’s only library! And it’s completely free to become a member! Whoo-hoo!

If you are an existing member, click here to head to the member’s only section and enter the password from your welcome email.

Otherwise, sign up below to become a member and get the library password! Once downloaded, just print and enjoy!

Little Red Riding Hood Pretend Play