Week 4--Poetry and Fairytales

Today the goal was to introduce some poetry and get the kids started on their individual fairy tales! They need to get writing them so we can start rehearsing them!

I love that I get to teach these lessons twice, because I find out what works/doesn't work the first time and I can make it better then second time. So this time, my hook was using the dice to create stories. I put different characters, places (for setting), and problems on the dice (I doubled up--the problems and the characters were on the same die).

The kids loved rolling the dice and we had fun making up stories with the dice. I found out that second graders do have the capability of coming up with ideas for the story, but they still need some help connecting all the different aspects together. The first time, they rolled the dice and I weaved the story together and had them give ideas as to how we could incorporate the

First we started by reading the story of Sleeping Beauty (I found this version in one of my favorite childhood collections of stories). The kids were very engaged in this story and were even guessing who the "old lady" was in the story. They thought she was the old Evil Fairy, but they were surprised to see it was the good fairy in disguise.

We then compared that version to a poetry version by Ken Nesbitt:

Sleeping Beauty pricked her thumb,
started feeling overcome.
Probably she would have died
as the witch had prophesied,
but the fairies had her blessed
so she just got beauty rest.
For a hundred fifty years
she missed balls and film premieres,
till Prince Charming came along
singing out a cheerful song.
Kneeling down he kissed her cheek
hoping that she'd wake and speak.
Sleeping Beauty raised an arm
reaching for the snooze alarm
and her waking words were these:
"Just need five more minutes please."

We talked about the different aspects of a poem (shorter, rhyming, words are more important because there are fewer, etc.) and I had the kids pick out some of the words they thought was the most important in the poem. We then made them more important by using our voices and bodies. Next time I would do more modeling in this area so they had a better idea of what I wanted them to do.

We then we played a game I wish I could take credit for (my friend, Alicia Harrison came up with it) called FairyTale Telephone. Each student writes down one thing for each category, folds down the paper, and then passes it to the next student. He/she then writes something down for the next category and then passes it to the next person, etc. By the end, they should have a variety of things written down that make for a very interesting story! Here's a few that they came up with:

And by "snack," the 2nd Grader meant "Snake"

From here, the kids then kept the one they ended on and they will be able to use it in their story writing. They are free to change whatever they want about the paper they ended up with, but this gives them a starting point in case they don't have anything to start with.

This time doing this activity, I started looking at what the kids had wrote (mainly to make sure they had written something and were actually ready to pass it) but they were pretty excited about showing me their answers, and I loved seeing all their different ideas. 

I think this will give them a good starting point in writing their own fairytales and I'm excited to see next week what they come up with. They seemed very excited about it so I think it was a success!

Week 3-- What is a Fable?

I finally got to head back to Mrs. Kawakami's class today. They've been out of school for the last month (they have year-round school). So the kids were pretty excited to see me and I was glad to be there again!

Since we had such a long break since I had visited their class last, I reviewed with the kids what fairy tales and folk tales were. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they remembered almost everything we had talked about!

We then did a game I called "Fairy Freeze." I didn't think I would need my wand for this, but wouldn't you know it, those kids asked where my wand was! Ha! This was an exercise where I would call out animal movements like "waddle like a penguin," "soar like an eagle," "scurry like a mouse" or "sleep like a lion!" They loved it and all of them got so into it by making noises and everything!

I wanted to get them moving with this activity and also give them an intro into talking about the animals in our story, a lion and a mouse.

From here, we came back to the rug and I pulled out my lion and mouse puppets. I asked Mrs. Kawakami to choose 2 people who had been great students that day that got to come up and help me. One student got to be the mouse and the other got to be the lion. I then passed out some string for 5 students to be the "hunters" in the story. I told the story and helped the kids with the puppets tell the story by telling them to make the noises at the right time, and make the puppets do what they need to in the story, etc.

At one point during the story, the lion roars for help when he's been caught by the hunters, so at this part, I told the boy who was playing the part to roar like the lion. His roar was small and quiet and the class giggled. So I said "I think you can do a better roar than that!" And I was right! He gave me a great roar and the rest of the class was so thrilled!

We then talked about the elements of fables and I asked them what the moral of the story of the lion and the mouse was.

From here, I split them into 3 groups by having them do a toe-to-toe exercise and I gave them each a poster where I explained to them that they were going to write everything they knew about fairy tales/folk tales/fables (depending on which poster they got). They could write or draw anything to do about the genre they got.

The writing on the posters part turned out fine, although it seemed as though I learned that I needed to give more instruction about what a fable is because the fable group had a hard time coming up with things to write on their poster.

Once they were done with that, they were to come up with a story that fit in their genre to perform for the class. This was a pre-assessment for me to see how well they performed in front of their peers.

The performances were fantastic though and I was impressed with the kids' enthusiasm and creativity. One boy was cast in the fairy tale group's version of Cinderella as the Fairy Godmother! He surprised us with a stunning British accent and hilarious conversation with Cinderella about her purse.

The British Fairy Godmother and Cinderella

The other two groups chose "The Three Little Pigs"and "The Tortoise and the Hare."

...and the tortoise WINS!

Overall, the activity was a bit crazy in the rehearsal phase. Next time, I would change it so there are only two groups that perform or talk to Mrs. Kawakami beforehand and see if we can split our time between 3 groups. I think we both relied on Becky because she was there, but it would've been a bit hectic without her.

We finished by talking about the differences between the 3 genres and the elements we saw in each performance. When we talked about each one, I displayed the corresponding poster on the board and I think that helped solidify the differences in the kids minds.

It was sure an eventful class!