Some preschool-aged children have been hearing the "This Little Piggy" rhyme since they were infants, whereas others might not have been exposed to it yet. Say the rhyme with the children and demonstrate how to start with touching the thumb or big toe and work your way to the smallest finger or toe as the rhyme progresses. After the kids are more familiar with the rhyme, have them join in saying the last word or two of each line or say the whole rhyme with you.
The "This Little Piggy" rhyme can help children learn how to count to five using their fingers. It also teaches one-to-one correspondence of the numbers with the fingers. For the activity, have kids touch a finger with each line and count the fingers as you go. For example, demonstrate and help the kids touch their pointer fingers with the line, "This little piggy stayed home" and count "two" together. After completing the rhyme, put up a specific number of fingers and help the kids count how many "little piggies" there are.
You can make finger puppets with the kids so they can use them when they say the rhyme. You can either have the kids make one finger puppet each and move it between their fingers for each line or have them make a full set of five finger puppets so they can see all five little piggies at once. For each puppet, start with tube-shaped felt you glued together. Help kids glue on a circle for the head, smaller circle for the nose, triangles for the ears and small googly eyes. Draw the nostrils on the snout with a black marker.
Part of the "This Little Piggy" rhyme talks about how the third little piggy had roast beef and the fourth little piggy had none. Make a craft with a paper plate that visually shows these piggies. Start with an upside-down paper plate that the kids paint with pink paint. After the paint is dry, have the kids glue on a darker pink snout and eyes and draw the eyes, nostrils and mouth with a black marker. Have kids color a picture of roast beef on card stock sized to fit on the eating side of the plate. Put a small piece of self-adhesive velcro on the back of the roast beef picture and the other piece in the center of the plate. Kids can stick on and remove the roast beef to demonstrate the little piggies in the rhyme.