The Doorbell Rang Retell Literacy Center Activity

Create your own The Doorbell Rang retelling activity with this free download for kindergarten.

This is how I created a The Doorbell Rang retell activity to go in our retell center as a storytelling option for my kindergarten students.

Let me show you what’s in our set and give you the materials to make it happen in your classroom too.

It’s one of my favorite literacy centers and we usually introduce The Doorbell Rang as one of our last memorable books in the year, so generally late spring.

I usually also read this one the fewest times out of all of our retell stories.

This happens normally because I focus on the math aspect when reading and we really enjoy drawing out the division situations. They love how they can quickly identify the patterns they have come to study in books and have that early on in the reading of this story, allowing them to focus elsewhere.

They still love the ending though - a cyclical ending gets them every time at this age. They just LOVE it!

What's in my retell set

Here are the props I gathered rather inexpensively (and you can too) to bring the book alive once we knew it by heart.

It was my most simple retell set to compile since it only takes two props.

I printed a whole bunch of chocolate chip cookies and laminated them.

I also found a cat toy with a jingle bell to act as the doorbell. But any type of quiet bell will work!

How to make your own Doorbell Rang retell activity

If you plan to make this a year-long literacy center, I highly recommend that you read the Retell Literacy Center Directions for more details and making everything run smooth.

Because you can make this kindergarten activity yourself and once you and your students are hooked on retelling you’ll want to make this a year-long thing.

Here are the materials you’ll need… (may include affiliate book links to Amazon)

Materials

• The Doorbell Rang Cookies {Free download}
• Optional: Hand-made cookies or print a bunch of these
• Small Type of Bell (jingle bell, cat toy, etc.)
• The Doorbell Rang Book by Pat Hutchins

What to do

Take your book copy and your props and place them together. A container like an open basket, a book bin or a large Ziploc bag will work!

But all they need to do is have the book and the materials and use the props to tell as much as they can:

• about the story
• from the story
• with the story (following along)

Encourage kinders to use as many words from the text as they can remember.

Conclusion

There you have it – how to make a The Doorbell Rang retell activity for your class. I love that it doesn’t require much to get it done. {wink}

If you like this activity, check out this list of 20 more famous stories that are great for retelling in kindergarten. Most of them are just as simple to pull together and I’ve found all of the downloadable resources for you.

Other books that are great for retelling in kindergarten

• The Three Little Pigs
• The Very Quiet Cricket
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• The Three Billy Goats Gruff