Making Fairy Tales Come Alive

The Haifa class has been doing an in-depth study on different fairy tales over the last few weeks. Instead of just making the fairy tales part of our circle time discussion and book time topics, we wanted to help the children see the fairy tales come alive. When we read Jack and the Beanstalk, we had beans in the sensory table and planted lima beans to create our own stalks. Today we had blue paint at the easel, and Jared is creating clouds on his paper, because today we read Henny Penny and saw how she thought the sky was falling!

We introduced the idea that stories can be fiction and non-fiction, and what the differences between the two are. We are using this in class to help our children learn the difference between what we read and what can actually happen in real life.

-Alison

Which Wolf is Which??

Our next fairy tale in the Haifa class is Red Riding Hood. Before we read the story at the end of the day, we talked about it at circle. It seemed that there was some confusion of a big bad wolf and whether there was a girl or three pigs in this story!! During choice time, Aleeza and Brett took out both The Three Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood and found both of the wolves we were talking about! Aleeza was comparing how they looked and who looked meaner.

Associating different parts of stories to one another is a great pre-literacy skill. It means that what is being heard is sinking in and can be compared to other stories. Maybe after we read The Three Little Pigs, we can do a big study on the differences of these wolves!

-Alison and Sauci

Understanding What We Read

We have just begun our learning about fairy tales in the Haifa class. Yesterday we introduced the idea that all fairy tales start with "Once upon a time" and that they are not real. We finished our day reading Jack and the Beanstalk, a well-known but not very commercialized story. Many of our students knew the story and were captivated by the book. This morning we continued our learning about Jack and the Beanstalk by talking about what happened in the story and what the message, or what we were supposed to learn, was. We are going to do this with several known but not commercialized (read: Disney-fied) fairy tales, where we will read them and then dissect them the next day!

Several of our students added important and relavant information and opinions into our discussions today, and we were even able to compare and contrast this book with other books of the same story!

-Alison and Sauci

The Same Story From Around the World

This week in the Haifa class, we thought we would go global. We decided that we were going to focus on stories of Cinderella from all over the world. Early this morning, before any students got to school, the bookshelf was ready for their arrival, chock full of the same story from different cultures.

At circle time, the students got to see where the different stories are from. We pulled out a map, showed them where we are, and then pointed to each place each story is from. Locations include the United States, the Middle East, Africa, Mexico, Korea, China, and more!! We are going to see how the stories change yet stay the same!

-Alison and Sauci

Fairy Tales Come to Life

The Tel Aviv All Stars have really enjoyed listening to favorite fairy tales as they anticipate the sequence of events and create their own endings to the tales. We have noticed that by asking them to compare and contrast elements of the stories as well as the appearance of the books themselves, many children have looked at more books on their own in our library. They have also shared similarities and differences between the books we've read and movies they have seen based on the books. To enrich this literacy experience even further, we have acted out the tales using flannel board pieces, a puppet glove, and with the children as the actors. Each actor's interpretation of his/her role is different naturally. If any of you have a favorite tale you would like to share, please let us know. The more the merrier!