First Grade is Fond of Fairy Tales!

To support a similar unit that happens in their classrooms, I've been sharing fairy tales with my first graders.  I'm happy to say that they are really enjoying the stories and have been learning a lot!  This week I read Jack and the Beanstalk and then showed them the five other versions our library owns.  I wasn't too surprised when every single one was signed out!  I also showed the students where the fairy tales live in the library, and lots of other titles were borrowed as well.

Our Fairy Tale Felt Board

In both the classroom and the library, the students have been learning the different elements of fairy tales.  To help them remember what we've discussed I display the "fairy tale felt board".  Each picture on the board represents something that I want the students to know.  If your child is in grade one or higher, see if he or she can explain what each picture refers to.  I'll put the answers below!

One thing I explain to the students is that fairy tales are just one type of folktale.  So everything we learn about folktales is also true of fairy tales! 

PICTURE - EXPLANATION

clock - Folktales are very, very old stories that have been around a very, very long time.
speech bubble - Folktales are passed down as part of an "oral tradition".  In other words, the stories are told over and over again and are passed down from generation to generation.  (They tend to change as they're retold, so we might discover lots of different versions of the same story.)
person - The person has a question mark because we don't know the name of the person who originally invented the story.  That's why the book version will usually say "retold by" the author.
letter "F"- The "F" stands for "fiction".
Earth - Folktales come from all around the world!

Many folktales, and fairy tales especially, also have these traits:
wand - magic!
crown - At least one character is royalty, such as a king, queen, prince or princess.
3 jewels on crown - There are often groups of threes (and sevens).

The first fairy tale we read together was Rumpelstiltskin, which is an excellent example of a classic fairy tale: there's magic (turning straw into gold), royalty (the greedy king), and many groups of three (3 rooms of straw, 3 turns of the spinning wheel each time, and 3 chances to guess his name).

I'm glad the students are enjoying these stories as much as I enjoy sharing them!

The Frog Prince, Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel: three more classic fairy tales!