As promised, I wanted to share with you how we started our study on fables and folk tales this week! We started on Thursday since we were taking benchmark assessments earlier in the week, so we’ve only just begun, but we’re off to a great start!
First, I made this anchor chart to help my students understand the similarities and differences between fables and folk tales. (Please ignore my terrible drawings. 😉 )
On Thursday, we discussed the similarities and differences and read Hansel and Gretel and The Fox and the Crow and decided which one was a fable and which one was a folk tale. We also discussed the central message and decided what the central message was of each.
I wasn’t sure if they completely understood the idea of a central message, so on Friday we used this anchor chart to understand it a little more clearly.
We discussed how fables will state the central message, but we have to infer when we read a folk tale. (Click {here} to read how I teach inferring.)
On Friday we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Billy Goats Gruff.
Both days, my students wrote down the central message of the stories we read. I had them use this fun flipper template to do it.
We’re going to keep tracking our central messages, and then at the end of our study, we’re going to sort the flaps by fable or folk tale and each student will create a poster. Since we’re not done our unit, I don’t have any finished products, but I’ll be sure to post them when I do!
If you want to grab the flipper freebie, just click on the picture above to download it from my free resource library for email subscribers! You just need to print each page back-to-back. 🙂
Next week we’re going to continue to study central messages in fables and folk tales, and then we’re going to begin comparing different versions of folk tales which will be TONS of fun!
What are your favorite fables and folk tales to read? Leave a comment below!
