We’ve been having so much fun with our fairy tale unit! This post will begin where my last post left off. In my last fairy tale post, we were reading and enjoying fairy tales, then adding then to our fairy tale comparison castle and looking for elements of fairy tales.
From there, we read three versions of The Three Little Pigs. Every year kids LOVE this. First, we read the traditional version and did this cause-effect activity.
Then we read this version where the good and bad characters are switched.
We did this T chart comparing the two stories.
and wrote our own fairy tales where we flipped the good and bad characters. First, I modeled how to do this with a shared writing story, then they worked on their own.
Then read the real popular version:
and had a fun discussion about whose story we believed. That discussion led to this activity:
clip art: http://pattonspatch.blogspot.com/
I wish I would’ve remembered to take a picture! They had some really hilarious things in the speech bubbles and I loved hearing their opinions on who was telling the truth.
Next, we read Jack and the Beanstalk. I’ve already posted about this activity, but here is a picture of a finished product. Our pre-worksheet discussion was so great! They came up with so many reasons why Jack should steal the gold and why he shouldn’t.
I had them visualize a part from the story too:
and did a character analysis of Jack (sorry no pictures).
Then we read two other versions of this classic fairy tale:
Giants have Feelings Too is the giant’s side of the story. The kiddos loved that one of course!
Jenny and the Cornstalk is about Jack’s cousin Jenny. There are several similarities and differences, so we did a Venn diagram comparing the two stories. Again, no pictures. 🙁
We also read Hansel and Gretel. We did a character analysis on Hansel. First we brainstormed words that could describe him and talked about why we would use those words (evidence from the story). We also discussed the problems in the story and how they were solved. This story is great for teaching/reviewing both concepts. These are the worksheets we used to record our answers.
Here are just a few of the centers the kids are working on that go along with this unit:
Post office: letters to fairy tale characters
Read and Sequence
Read, Think, Match (match clues about fairy tale characters to the pictures of the characters)
We did this one as a class using our document camera. I wanted this to be a lesson on syllables as well as a lesson for how to use syllables to help with spelling.
First, we sorted the pictures by counting the syllables.
Then we practiced spelling the words by breaking them into the syllables parts. We discussed how every syllable needs a vowel or vowel pair. We did our best guess spelling to spell each word, then I showed them the correct spelling. This was a great spelling lesson!
Oh my word, there is so much to share! I am loving this unit. I wish I had time for more! We are reading versions of Cinderella right now. There are SO many out there from all around the world. You could do a whole unit just on Cinderella and tie in cultures and map concepts. I wish I had more time because I have so many things I want to do.
All of the things you see here (and much more) are included in my fairy tale unit, which can be found at my TPT store.
Jennifer from First Grade Blue Skies has a Fairy Tale Label-it Pack. She is fabulous and so sweet! I swear, she is always there to leave a nice comment. I have her Fairy Tale Label-it Pack and my kiddos love it!
Hope this all helps if you are thinking of doing a fairy tale unit!
