15 Activities for Teaching Peter Rabbit

Generations of young readers have delighted in rascally Peter and his misadventures in Mr. McGregor’s garden in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Help your students celebrate this timeless classic with these fun and engaging art, literacy, math, nutrition, and STEM Peter Rabbit activities. 

1. Finger knit a bunny.

SOURCE: Red Ted Art

Finger knitting is a simple skill that, in this case, yields adorable results. Depending on your students’ age and dexterity, this can be either a together project (they knit; you assemble) or an independent project. Great for building fine motor skills, plus they get to take home a cuddly critter!

2. Experiment in the garden. 

SOURCE: Inspiration Laboratories

Discover which environment is best for growing seedlings with this simple science activity. Take three identical plastic cups and fill each with a different material (soil, pebble, or sand, as seen in the image above). Then tuck a seedling into each cup. Place the three cups where they will receive ample sunlight and give each of them the same amount of water. Then observe to see which plant thrives. 

3. Learn more about rabbits.

SOURCE: Itsy Bitsy Fun

Peter Rabbit and his family have been fascinating youngsters for decades. Help your students learn lots of fun facts about rabbits with this free printable poster.  

4. Dig for sight words.

SOURCE: The Imagination Tree

Kids will love digging up word carrots with this creative activity. The materials are simple: a bucket or tub, dried black beans, prepared word carrots, and a couple of garden spades. Change out words as your students move through their grade-level list. This, as creator Anna puts it, is “a playful way to practice literacy skills and learn new sight words.”

5. Create an ABC carrot patch.

SOURCE: Growing Book by Book

This simple felt-board alphabet activity will help your students learn letter names and sounds as well as give them the chance to do some upper- and lower-case letter matching. In addition to instructions for this activity, this link includes a video with three other carrot-themed literacy activities 

6. Learn about cause and effect.

SOURCE: Primary Press

Naughty Peter Rabbit engages in lots of mischief during his visit to Mr. McGregor’s garden. That’s what makes this a perfect story for teaching cause and effect. Create this chart with your class after you read the story. Provide your students with events from the story and have them tell you what happened as a result. 

7. Build your own garden structure.

SOURCE: J. Daniel 4’s Mom

This fun design challenge guides students through each step of the STEM engineering process as they create a garden enclosure to keep Peter Rabbit from getting the giant carrot. Click here for the complete lesson and resources. 

8. Design a map of Mr. McGregor’s garden.

SOURCE: Children’s Books and Reading

Throughout The Tale of Peter Rabbit, we follow Peter on his adventures as he runs down the lane, through the fields, and into Mr. McGregor’s garden. This mapmaking activity is a great way to engage your students on a deeper level. As professor Trevor Cairney of the University of New South Wales explains, “Creating a map of a story location helps readers gain a clearer sense of the setting, engage more deeply with the plot and absorb more successfully the essential details of the story.”  

9. Wrap up a healthy snack. 

SOURCE: Rainy Day Mum

This yummy hands-on activity takes inspiration from Peter’s passion for veggies and teaches kids how to make a healthy, nutritious snack. The result is a delicious treat that Peter would definitely squeeze under the garden gate for. 

10. Solve a mixed-up garden mystery.

SOURCE: Gourmet Mom on the Go

Students can help Peter Rabbit figure out what is growing in his garden by using their senses of taste, smell, and sight. This fun snack mystery is easy to prepare using a muffin tin, tissue paper, and small pieces of fruits and veggies. Click on the link to download the charming task card, seen in the image above. 

11. Make stick puppets.

SOURCE: Etsy

Young learners love to reenact stories with puppets. Download these gorgeous printables ($10) onto card stock and glue or tape them to large craft sticks to create a full cast of Beatrix Potter characters. 

12. Put together a sensory bin.

SOURCE: Handmade by CJ

Another fun activity that encourages creative play inspired by The Tale of Peter Rabbit. For a full list of materials, click here. Be sure to tuck a copy of the book into the bin for kids to reference as they play. 

13. Solve Peter Rabbit-inspired math problems. 

SOURCE: Golden Gang Kindergarten

Peter’s blue jacket and its shiny brass buttons provide the inspiration for this fun math activity. Using dried beans painted with gold spray paint and blue jackets cut out of construction paper, students work through various addition and subtraction problems.

14. Try carrot number matching.

SOURCE: 3 Dinosaurs

A fun and simple number-matching activity you can make with brown, orange, and green construction paper and a Sharpie. Prepare the “dirt” by writing numbers 1–10 on the brown paper. Cut out orange carrots and mark them with corresponding tally marks. Prepare green carrot tops with corresponding dots. Have students put their carrots and carrot tops together and then tuck each carrot into the proper place in the garden. 

15. Play I-Spy while you watch the movie.

SOURCE: Handmade Charlotte

Use these free downloadable game cards to play a colorful game of I-Spy as you watch a movie-version of The Tale of Peter Rabbit. 

What are your favorite Peter Rabbit activities? Come share your ideas on our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE. 

Also, check out 12 Activities for Teaching Charlotte’s Web.