If this is your first time visiting, you might want to subscribe so you'll be notified when there's something new to read! See the sidebar below to subscribe. 

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Green Veggies and Princesses

Last week my students came into class asking (literally), "What kind of adventure are we going on today?" Is that not the coolest thing? The answer was: a fairy tale adventure! Our adventure unit has wrapped up, but our fairy/folk tale unit is just beginning. It's difficult for me to pick a favorite unit, but our fairy tale unit ranks pretty high. 

We read The Princess and the Pea (Lauren Child) last week. It's a long story, so I always paraphrase when presenting it. The children seem to enjoy the story all the same, and it keeps us on time with our lesson. The illustrations are what make this book (if you haven't seen this book yet, leave your computer now and head for the nearest library or bookstore), so I don't feel too bad about not reading the text word for word. 

All my students (that's not an over generalization) love this story, boys included. I think it has a lot to do with Lauren Child's own telling of this classic tale. Those photographs of her beautiful paper princesses, prince, king, and queen amongst each detailed dollhouse-esque scene... It leaves even me gazing at the illustrations utterly mesmerized. 

Some photos from our lesson are below. Can you guess what we were doing?






You can purchase your own copy of The Princess and the Pea at the Literacy Launchpad Store.



A couple other unrelated notes:
  • I was told that there might be a problem with the link to subscribe to my blog via email. I'm looking into that. 


2 comments:

Dawn said...

I love your photos! Children love to act out stories.

There's so much you can do with fairy tales. Cinderella and The Three Little Pigs, for instance, have so many versions that you can do so many "text to text" comparisons. Also, fairy tale units give you the ability to address the important issues of diversity and cultural differences.

Diversity and global awareness are important topics to me, and I have created a separate category for them on my blog. I am planning on writing a post related to fairy tales in the near future.

Thanks for sharing!

Book Chook said...

I bet the kids had a ball! I've always loved that story. To be honest, I totally relate to the princess, because I find it hard to get to sleep in a bumpy, lumpy bed.