Week 2--What is a Folk Tale?

The first three weeks I have set up so that each week we learn about each of the kinds of stories we'll be dealing with in this unit: fairy tales, folk tales, and then fables. So this week I needed to introduce the wonderful world of folk tales and I decided to do it through the story of the Three Little Pigs. (*note: the line between folk and fairy tales is VERY blurred. I realize that this story can be classified as a fairy tale, but for our purposes today, we're treating it as a folk tale.)

So today I started the kids out with a game called "Ice Wizard." It is similar to the activity we did last week in that I use my magic wand although this time  when you say they all turn into something, then they melt onto the ground and turn into something else (i.e. animals, dancers, basketball players, soliders, robots, aliens, mermaids, kings, etc.). The kids LOVED "melting" on to the ground. It was a great warm-up!

I then had the kids all come back to the rug and I assigned them all a part in the story of "The Three Little Pigs." I didn't worry about having only one person play each part, I just let however many kids wanted to play the part play it together and they were totally content with that (I think the warm-up game really helped them see how they could all be something together, like pigs, princesses or whatever).

Then once everyone had a part, I started telling the story of the pigs going out to seek their fortune and told each group of "pigs" (Pig 1, 2, and 3) to go to different corners of the room. Then I told the story of how the wolf visited each pig (after they all built their straw, stick, and brick houses...respectively) and the wolves visited each pig until the very last house where they fell into a boiling pot of water. They had so much fun, they wanted to do it again!

I can't tell you how delightful it was to see all the "pigs" huddled in the corner of the classroom giggling as they waited for the "wolves" to come to the last brick house and fall into the boiling pot of water!

After we had our fun acting out the story of The Three Little Pigs, we came back to the rug and read "The TRUE Story of the Three Little Pigs"

After which, we talked about the HUGE differences between this story and the one we acted out. I also asked the kids to help me identify the following things in each story:

• The problem and solution 
• The sequence of events 
• and the central message.

Then, I reminded the kids of the telephone activity we did last week where the object was changed the more times we told it and related that to folk tales. Folk tales were originally told by word of mouth, so that's why there are so many different versions out there. And we read a second version of our folk tale:

This is a great book because it takes a huge spin on the original story because the "big, bad pig" uses things like sledgehammers and dynamite to knock down the wolves' houses. Not to mention the plot twist in the end when the wolves befriend the pig. The kids got quite a kick out of this version and comparing it to the other two versions!

For the final part of this lesson, I had them do a mini assessment where they each got to create their title for their own version of "The Three Little Pigs" story. Once they had an idea of how they would change the story, they wrote it down on a piece of paper that they handed into Mrs. Larsen.

It was sure fun to see their creativity and what they thought would be fun to write about. Some stayed true to the pigs and wolves theme, but there were other pretty creative titles that would make a great story. My favorite? "The Three Little Ninjas and the Big, Bad, Samurai." Now wouldn't that make a great children's book?

Overall, I think the lesson went great and I was impressed on how well the kids understood the concept of folk tales and them being fluid and able to be changed. I think it's a great way to instill some critical thinking skills in kids--comparing the three stories really made them think!