Have the children cut out a potato shape from brown construction paper or paper sacks. Provide them with white, black, red and other colors of construction paper to cut out for the eyes, nose, mouth and hat features then have students glue them onto the face background. Variations of this activity include attaching a craft stick to the bottom or leaving the paper sack whole to make a potato man puppet.
While reading the book aloud to the children, ask them to count aloud with you each time another pig enters the story. After reading, re-enact the story with the students. Have one student at a time come to the front of the class and ask the class to count aloud the number of students standing until all of them have been counted. For fun, have each student use a squeaky pig voice to ask for a potato upon standing.
Provide each student with a potato, a pipe cleaner, googly eyes, two felt triangles and a button. In place of a button you could use a small pink construction paper circle or other small round object for the pig's snout. Have the students twist the pipe cleaner to make it curly like a pig's tail then insert it into one end of the potato. Glue the eyes, triangle ears and snout on the other end to make the pig's head. Use glue sticks or glue dots to make the work easier while working with the potato.
The characters in the book use good manners by helping mother make the potatoes and saying, "Thank you." Play a manners game with the class to encourage good classroom behavior. Have the students sit in a circle or stand in a line. Hand the first child a potato, or other object, only after he asks nicely. After receiving the potato, the student must say, "Thank you." Continue passing the potato from one student to another, using good manners.
As you read the story aloud to the class, ask the students to raise their hands when they hear rhyming words. Call on the students individually to identify the rhyming words they hear. Then ask the class if they can list other words that rhyme with the words identified. Continue throughout the book.