Fairy Tales in the Classroom

The website readwritethink.org has a great list of fairy tale books published: http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson42/booklist.pdf

Students can also write fairy tale biographies, which future teachers may find interesting: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/fairy-tale-autobiographies-1.html?tab=4#tabs

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

            This fairy tale is called The Twelve Dancing Princesses and it is written by Marianna Mayer and illustrated by K.Y. Craft.  It is directed toward 4^th-5^th grade students and I would rate this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.

            The Twelve Dancing Princesses tells the story of twelve princesses, all sisters, who mysteriously wear out their slippers nightly.  Their father, the king, is so intrigued and concerned he declares that any man who can find out their secret will be allowed to marry one of the princesses.  All the men who ventured into their bedroom at night were never seen again and the secret remained a mystery.  However, a young man named Peter used a magic flower from the garden where he worked to turn invisible and watch the princesses as they escaped their bedroom at night and went to a hidden castle to dance with all the missing suitors.  Once he knew the secret, he left little hints that he knew for the youngest sister, Elise.  She became irritated and paranoid and the sisters plotted to give Peter the same drink the other men had had: a potion that turned a heart into ice.  Elise grew fond of Peter and eventually refused to let him drink the potion, so she and Peter fell in love and got married.

            This book would be great to introduce fairy tales to older students who feel like they have outgrown the genre.  It is a lengthy book with a lot of advanced vocabulary and vivid imagery.  Also, it does not only appeal to female students since it has a lot of mystery involved and the main character is male.  However, the mystery is far from complicated since the title of the book completely reveals what the princesses are doing to wear out their slippers.  This kind of defeats all the building of suspense since you know from the start what the girls like to do.  Students can be encouraged to write their own longer fairy tales, including details that allow the reader to feel like they are in the story.  The illustrations in this book are very magical and detailed.  It is hard to drag your eyes away from them as you read the text. 

The Fairy Tales

            The anthology titled The Fairy Tales is compiled by Jan Pienkowski, translated by David Walser, and written by the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault.  The book is geared toward 3^rd-4^th graders and I would rate this book 3.5 out of 5 stars. 

            This book presents Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel told by the Brothers Grimm.  Cinderella written by Charles Perrault is also included.  The stories written by the Brothers Grimm have the same basic story line as the classic fairy tales, but they provide very vivid details that inspire readers to create deep mental images.  The language and rhythm they use is really whimsical and keeps the reader interested in the story.  Cinderella is also a little more vivid than the original version, which provides readers with a great opportunity to imagine the story, even though parts seem so unrealistic. 

            To use this book effectively in the classroom, it can be used with a writing unit on using imagery in words.  Students could be given a text, much like the ones in this book and be asked to draw a picture of what the text describes.  Although the pictures will probably be different, they will likely all pick up on some of the fundamental details or emphasized parts.  Students could then write outside, using very sensory details or somewhere else and share with their classmates to show how they changed images and sights into writing.  Also, the illustrations are all in silhouette, so the reader is really left filling in those details to the images in the story.

Also, here is a link to a lesson plan to incorporate the Brothers Grimm fairy tales into the classroom effectively: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/calendar-activities/jacob-grimm-brothers-grimm-20423.html

Zoom

            The wordless picture book Zoom is by Istvan Banyai.  It is geared toward 1^st-4^th graders.  I would rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

            This book starts with a picture that is hard to make out what it is.  As the reader moves to each page, the image zooms out more and more.  The reader is constantly shocked that the world they perceived to be to scale is actually much tinier than imagined.  A farm becomes a toy set which becomes the cover of a magazine which becomes a cruise ship which becomes an ad on a bus on a television in the desert which is a stamp on a letter on an island that a plane is flying over.  Then the pictures zoom out  to the Earth form space. 

Page 2 in Zoom

Page 1 in Zoom

     


  Zoom could be used for students to think about what communities they are in on a small and large scale.  For instance, a child could draw themselves on a soccer field playing with their team then draw their school as a whole, then draw their city as a whole, their state as a whole, their country as a whole, and so on.  This can help students assess how many levels play into their lives.  Students could also explore the idea of this book using photography or drawing.  

A Sequence in Zoom

They could find an object in nature or in a classroom, say a flower.  They could begin really close to it and back up until the observer can tell what the object is.  This is a way for students to feel like they are inventing riddles, so the interest level will be high.  

The Higher Power of Lucky

            The novel The Higher Power of Lucky is written by Susan Patron and is geared toward 4^th through 6^th graders.  I would rate this book 4.5 out of 5 stars. 

            The Higher Power of Lucky tells the story of a ten-year-old girl named Lucky who is growing up in a trailer in Hard Pan, California, population 43.  She is a young girl very interested in science and closely studies the community around her.  She became inspired to find her higher power, or spiritual strength, while eavesdropping on 12-step program meetings about people who have hit their rock bottoms.  She lives with her father’s ex-girlfriend Brigitte, after her mother died in an accident after a storm took down a power line.  She is a driven little girl who is always prepared for the worst with her survival pack and hope for the best with her best friend Lincoln in tow. 

            This book would be a good example of how to use setting to enhance a story.  Lucky is surrounded by basically nothing- a town in the middle of the dessert with a population of less than 50.  Yet she still finds countless things to explore and many details to attend to.  Students could find ways to see their community or setting in new ways to write about in class after reading The Higher Power of Lucky.  The narration of the novel is also a great reference for students learning how to write stories.  Narratives can be a daunting task for new writers, but the way that readers get to be inside Lucky’s head as she examines her world is a great opportunity to see the literary element of voice exercised to its fullest potential.  The voice and point of view of the story really affects the experience the reader has and deepens the connection between the reader and Lucky.  Susan Patron really does a great job at mimicking the thoughts and emotions of a ten-year-old girl, so this book should be quite relatable for most elementary students. 

            This book is a great novel to introduce a unit on writing narratives.  If students can use The Higher Power of Lucky to find their own voice, their writing will be genuinely reflective of the thought in their heads.  Students can also really relate to some ideas like feeling confused about their identity or a feeling of loneliness.  Lucky feels somewhat distant from Brigitte and the idea of a loss of a close loved one is discussed, but in a way that is not too heavy for children to get through and get to the other parts of the story.  This book is great because it touches on a lot of aspects of a person’s life: family, the search for something greater, curiosity, and friendship.  Students are bound to connect with some part of Lucky’s life, which makes this book versatile and usefully in a diverse classroom.  

Here is a link to build wind chimes in your classroom like those in the Found Object Wind Chime Museum in the book.  

The Way I Feel

            The Way I Feel is both written and illustrated by Janan Cain.  It is written for younger elementary students and for students in special education classrooms.  I would rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. 

            This book displays a different emotion on each page with a description of situations that ignite that emotion and illustrate the way people look when they are feeling that way.  Some of the emotions discussed are disappointed, thankful, and jealous, among others.  Each page is also written in rhyme and the font is arranged in various ways, mostly reflecting the emotion using curvy lines or jagged edges. 

            This book would be excellent if used in a special education classroom since a lot of those children struggle when expressing how they are feeling in words.  When I observed in a special education classroom, there was an emotion wall that had different emotions with facial expressions to visually cue the students into what the emotion meant.  This was useful when students were very emotional but felt like they were unreachable by the teacher because they could not vocalize how they were feeling.  This book would be great to introduce the idea of an emotion wall and can be used to describe each emotion in some detail for reference.  

Whoever You Are

          The book Whoever You Are is written by Mem Fox and illustrated by Leslie Staub.  The book is geared toward the primary grades, between kindergarten and 3^rd grade.  I would rate this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

            Whoever You Are is a book about all the things that make people different, like skin color, houses, and land, but all the things that make people the same, like love, pain, and emotions.  It bridges the gap between all the diverse lands in the world by showing children from all over smiling, in school, and living their lives.  It makes it very easy for children of a young age to discuss and understand diversity on the basic level. 

            This book would be a great addition to a unit on diversity or discussing the different subgroups that make up a community.  Teachers could use this to introduce the idea of sharing different aspects of your life with someone on the other side of the world.  It also establishes a universal understanding for the way people feel about the world they live in.  Each person has the same kind of heart inside them, and Mem Fox does a great job at explaining it in an enticing way. Teachers could especially use this book if they teach in a diverse classroom, to point out the similarities between different groups in the classroom.  This could help form deeper bonds as a classroom and create a safe place for learning and sharing.  If students feel like someone who may seem polar opposite of them can be very similar and can be a friend, it opens a lot of doors for friendships.