Fairy Tales

Castles castles everywhere! I love getting out these dress-ups and toys! The hardest part is always narrowing down which stories to tell, I probably need 6 weeks to give this theme justice, but here's what we did in two:

Dramatic Play

Medieval Castle


Filled with dress-ups fit for a queen. Or princess, king, prince, knight, dragon, or magician.




And a modern kitchen with a microwave, because they gotta eat, and the kids keep asking when they can play with the kitchen again. It was played with constantly! At one point, a castle full of princesses defended their castle with a banana, whisk, and grapes from a horde of attacking dragons,  so I'm sure they're grateful it was there!

Week 2, Jack's beanstalk was added after we'd read that story.

Blocks

Toy castle with fingerpuppets




Jack and the Beanstalk figures and story cards were added to the castle.





Can I just share one of my biggest teaching regrets that comes around every time I pull out my Jack and the Beanstalk box? I bought this at a UEA conference over a decade ago. There were a whole bunch, all marked down. I couldn't afford much and was getting some other puzzles and dominoes kits I love, so I only bought the one. I don't remember getting to use it while teaching Kindergarten, so I didn't see it's value then either. The kids LOVE it! Every year I pull it out, they go crazy for it. We use it together in large group, but I have to have it out to play because they love it so much. They love retelling the story and acting it all out with these little wooden figures. And the CD and story cards are so great at telling the story and helping us sequence it. I decided a few years ago to go to their website and get other stories and I was shocked at how expensive they are! So I just continue to be grateful for the one I have, and covet the others on their site. If you want them for your kids, or you're a teacher visiting the site, you can find them here.

I also had out nursery rhyme puzzles and a Frozen memory game. The memory game was a big hit, and I helped get them into small groups to play and they did great at taking turns and getting along. I was impressed!

Art

Glitter glue! So much better than the loose stuff, and such a good small motor skill to squeeze those little bottles!


Paint stamps


Sequins and sparkles! I love how it even shines in the pictures. Sparkly pom poms too, plus leftover glitter glue.


We also used the art table one morning to make our gingerbread men snack. They made the dough, and rolled and cut out the cookies. Then played play dough, and I added a Princess Sofia and Cinderella play doh toys. They shared and played impressively well with those!

Small Manipulatives

Gingerbread Man floor puzzle


Fairy lacing cards


Opposites puzzle (after we'd done it in small group)


And by popular demand, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears mini-dramatic play set up.  They loved acting it out so much, they begged to do it again. So it was out for free play time when they came back the next day, and they played it over and over and over. I loved hearing them retell the story again and again and tell each other the lines "my porridge is too hot!" etc. It was darling. And such great reading comprehension!!!


The magnet board had the alphabet and a pic for each beginning sound.


Writing table

"Magic" color changing markers


Fairy tale stickers


Striped markers


Snack

Day 1, we made, decorated, and ate gingerbread men, and decorated an extra to take home. We also read the story that day.

Day 3, we ate porridge to go along with our reading of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. Most of them really liked it! My family eats it for breakfast regularly. I don't think it's even technically called porridge, but thanks to preschool, it's what all my kids call it! We use this:

Large Group

We learned the word "pretend" and determined with each
story we read, if it was real or pretend. And that fairy tales are pretend stories. Because pigs don't build houses and bears don't eat porridge! They loved pointing out those silly things in each story.
We also learned the song, The Knight Chased the Dragon. It's to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel."

All around the castle, the knight chased the dragon.
The dragon said it was so fun, pop goes the dragon!

We held hands and danced in a circle as we sang, slowly, then faster and faster. They loved it.

Day 1, we read The Gingerbread Man, then did the floor puzzle together.


Day 2, we read Jack and the Beanstalk and put the story cards in order, and listened to the song and acted it out with the wood figures.

Day 3, we read Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, then used the masks and props to act out the story a few times so everyone got a turn.

Day 4, we read the 3 Little Pigs and put story cards in order of the story. Then they each got pieces from a sequencing puzzle to put together, first-middle-last. Each child got to "read" their story by telling what happened in their puzzle first, next, then last. They did so so great!

Small Group

Week 1, my group read The Tortoise and the Hare and talked about the opposites in the story (fast and slow). Then we matched these opposites puzzles and took turns telling what our opposites were.

The other group made these cute sticker scenes.

Week 2, my group decorated crowns and I helped each child review the letters in their name, and add their name to their crown with letter stickers.

The other group played with my math counting bears.

Jan Brett

I love this week! Jan Brett is one of my favorite authors, so I love doing a whole theme surrounding her books, and introducing her to the kids! My youngest son groaned when I told him what we were learning about, but that's mainly because he didn't know who she was, or how fun her books were! There were no complaints during the week!

Dramatic Play

This was based on her books, The Three Snow Bears, and Annie and the Wild Animals. The "bear cave" had 3 polar bears inside, and blankets for their 3 beds. Outside, I had a bunch of stuffed and puppet wild animals from the other book.






Blocks

Giant mitten and mitten character puppets. We had done this story last year, although 2 of our students are new this year and hadn't done it, so instead of doing as a large group again, it was just out for free play. I ended up reading it 3-4 times as they had fun acting it out. It was on the shelf and played with several times during the theme week.


Noah's Ark book, and Noah's Ark toys and finger puppet set


Lincoln Logs

Art

Cardboard easels


Slime with markers. These kids do not like oozy yucky slime I've learned, but this recipe (white glue mixed with water with a little dissolved borax) leaves it thick and not sticky. I love leaving it white because then they can use the dried out marker box to color it. And they can still enjoy squeezing and stretching it without mess.


Beads and pipe cleaners


Watercolors

Small Manipulatives

Number pegs


Animal words puzzle


Mitten ABC clothesline


Lacing cards


Flat marbles with Jan Brett themed pages


Jan Brett number matching in pocket charts


Snack

Tortilla snowflakes with cinnamon

Bread and Honey, and we read the book Honey Honey Lion

Large Group

We learned the word "author" this week. I introduced Jan Brett as an author and illustrator and told them one thing that makes her books unique is her secret pictures on the sides of each page that show us what else is happening in the story. They loved looking for them as we read each book! We also learned that Jan Brett loves to travel the world and that's what inspires her stories. As we read each book, we marked it on our map where it was from.


Day 1, we read The Three Snow Bears. They quickly caught on that it's similar to Goldilocks and the Three Bears and just knew how it was going to end. We then used sorting bears and sorted them by big, medium, and small, then sorted by colors. Afterwards, they each took turns using the scale to weigh different quantities of bears and we learned words like heavier and lighter.

Day 2, we read The Turnip. I also showed them the Russian version I have of that book and we compared the two. I taught them a few Russian words too, and they loved trying to say Babushka! I lived in Russia many years ago, and showed them a lot of the fun things I'd brought home. They were way more interested than I expected them to be! They especially loved the stacking dolls. I have a 5-piece one that tells the story of The Turnip, but their favorite was my 10-piece one because the pieces get so tiny at the end.

Day 3, we read The Hat, which features Hedgie the hedgehog. My neighbor brought her pet hedgehog to our class, which was a big hit! He was very shy and preferred to stay curled up in a ball, but she was able to get him to at least poke out enough they got to see his cute face and feet. Some of the kids were willing to try to touch and hold him, while others were scared and stayed by me, preferring just to watch. Once we went outside to go home, the hedgehog was running all over the front yard, so the kids had a great time watching him move and run, and really getting to see his face!


Day 4, we read Daisy Comes Home. This book takes place in China, so I showed them some of the things I brought back from China, since I got to spend a semester there in college. Again, I was surprised how interested they were in just showing them stuff. They loved the lantern and paper dragon the most.

Small Group

My group did a puzzle page of The Mitten where they had to cut out the pieces, then glue them on a paper with pictures. The letters on the puzzle matched up with the beginning sound of the picture. It was good cutting practice and letter and sound recognition.

While my group worked, the other group got to play with the sorting bears and scales some more from large group.

The next week, my group read The Gingerbread Baby and played a Gingerbread Baby board game. We had also read The Umbrella, so the other group colored a rainforest mural, and rainforest animals they got to glue on to the mural. 


All of these games and extra themed things come from Jan Brett's website, which is full of fun lesson ideas for each book, games, coloring pages, etc.

Fairy Tales

This is always a favorite theme that I love doing. There are just so many good fairy tales and stories to choose from, and so many activities and ideas for each one. Sometimes I think I could focus and do a different fairy tale each week for a few months! But, they'd probably get sick of it by then. These last 2 weeks, we learned a few different fairy tales and focused on reading comprehension as we read books, retold stories, acted them out, retold with puppets, and put story events in order (sequencing).

Dramatic Play

Castle! I was so excited to find this new cardboard castle on a yard sale site a few weeks ago! It was the perfect front, then I used my old box castle walls for the sides. I filled it up with costumes, fit for a King, (and queen, princess, knight, wizard, dragon and fairy).




The second day, after we had read Jack and the Beanstalk, I added the beanstalk. I didn't have it the first day, because I wanted to read the story first so they'd know what it was. It added a great element to their play, and turned the castle into the giant's castle too.




This was a popular center, all 4 days! Most of the kids got dressed up as soon as they walked in the door to school! We had princesses and knights playing and going center to center each day.

Blocks

The first day, was the castle, filled with the medieval finger puppet characters.


The last 3 days, it had the beanstalk, and a few costumes for the Jack and the Beanstalk story.

Art

Fairy Tale sponge painting shapes


Jack and the Beanstalk-inspired collage items and glue


Glitter Glue


















Play dough with princess Cinderella and Sofia Playdoh toys. Plus, ABC stamps and molds, since not everyone loves Princesses. I forgot a picture.

Small Manipulatives

ABC magnets on the magnet board, with ABC order charts. This was pretty popular and was usually busy with kids matching the letters in ABC order.


Princess number matching cards in the pocket charts


Building things (no idea what these are called)


Jack and the Beanstalk wood characters and castle for story re-telling



3 Little Pigs story re-telling


Tortoise and the Hare puppets (forgot a pic)

Opposites puzzle

Writing Center

I forgot pics, but we had out different colored pens and scented crayons this week

Outside

SNOW!!! Brrrr...and cold! A reminder that we got outside in the cold, so always pack warm things for them to wear! We had a lot of cold fingers this week. We didn't stay out long, cuz it was cold and the air quality wasn't great, but since it wasn't in the red, we went out for 10 minutes to run and get the wiggles out! So please always send cold weather gear!

Large Group


We learned a fun new song, to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel. Running in circles is perfect for getting out wiggles!
All around the castle,
the knights chase the dragon,
The dragon thought it was so fun,
Roar goes the dragon!

Day 1, we read Jack and the Beanstalk. Then we listened to a song with the story and learned the chorus and sang along. They split into 2 groups and had to put the 5 story cards in order of how the story happened. Then they retold the story with the wood figures. Then we drew small castles (we talked about using rectangles and triangles and practiced those shapes on the board first) and added clouds to them. Hopefully, if our beans can grow during this cold winter, they'll grow up our beanstalks to the castle!


Day 2, we read Tortoise and the Hare and acted it out with puppets. We did it twice so they all got a turn to be in it. We talked about opposites (fast and slow) from the story, then worked on an opposites puzzle together. We also did opposites in our knights and dragon song (fast/slow, quiet/loud, high/low, etc).

Day 3, we read The 3 Little Pigs. Then I put them in groups of 3 to each "build" a house for the pigs, from Goldfish cracker boxes. They did SO WELL! I mean in getting along. There was no arguing and crying. We often try to do things in groups, and they're so busy hogging stuff, they don't get much done. We had none of that today. They just all poured glue everywhere and made beautiful houses! Then we got back together with our pig toys, and dog puppet (as close to a wolf as I had) and retold the story a few times so they all got turns to have parts.


Day 4, we watched The 3 Billy Goats Gruff, instead of reading it. They loved having a video! Even if it was less than 10 minutes long. Again, like days previous, we acted it out together. Then they colored their story wheels. As they finished, I had them use their story wheels to tell each other the story, and hopefully they came home and told it to you, too!