Tell me a Tale

I am a huge fan of fairytales, and the benefits they provide for young readers are fantastic. Though Sean is a bit young for the Brother Grimm tales LOL, I love that fairy tales have a moral and often teach children of tribulation and perseverance. Educationally speaking they are a perfect genre in terms of teaching story elements as they have well developed characters (protagonist and antagonist), magical settings, problems, and solutions. Fairytales are simple enough to remember and retell with fun props and have the cutest twisted rewrites (fractured tales) such as The Runaway Tortilla, The Rolling Rice Cake, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, and Goldilocks and Just 1 Bear. They are great examples for teaching fact from fiction and carry children off into imaginary wonders. They also serve as great ways to ease into discussions of various character traits.

I chose to introduce The 3 Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the 3 Bears since they both play off the 3s theme and he is newly 3!!!! He loved both stories as I expected so I created 2 simple activities to accompany them.

The 3 Little Pigs

Supplies:

Clear Contact Paper

3 triangles cut from colored paper

Container to collect items (sticks, straw, brick look alikes)

3 pig stickers or clipart

 

Process:

After reading the book, several times, take your child on a nature hunt for items to build the 3 little pigs’ homes. I let Sean brainstorm items and he found pine needles for straw, twigs for sticks, and mulch for bricks.

 

Tape a sheet of contact paper sticky side up on your surface. Retell the story together and build the houses as you go. Everything should stick to the contact paper. Place each little pig into their newly built home and have the big bad wolf blow the houses down. This was a fun retelling!

 

 

 

 

Goldilocks and the 3 Bears

I made a word document with clipart pictures and labels for the opposite pairs listed and clipart images of a bowl in several sizes. Sean and I have been working on opposites and this story is great for reviewing hot/cold, high/low, big/little, full/empty, awake/asleep and also ordering by size. I placed half of the opposite matches on contact paper (sticky side up) and had Sean find the matching opposite and place it next to it, you could also use the pieces for a matching game or have your little one practice gluing. For the bowls have your child order from biggest to smallest, smallest to biggest or sort small, medium, large.

 

I already have my eye on some fractured fairytales so stay tuned!