Hopping Good Tales

Day 1:
Assess and review prior knowledge:
• Review the characteristics of a fairy tale.
1. “Once upon a time…”

2. Long long ago

3. Magic

4. The number 3

5. The number 7

6. Good Vs Evil

7. Talking animals

8. Royalty

9. “Happily ever after …”

• Provide several books of fairy tales for the students to read and make note of the elements of the genre.
• Review that every story has a beginning, middle and end.
• Read aloud to the class several versions of The Frog Prince.

Day 2: Watch “Faerie Tale Theatre: The Tale of the Frog Prince”, borrowed from the library. This version features a cast of people acting in animal parts and offers a different perspective.

Day 3: Students will go to the computer lab to read the online version of “The Frog King: The Princess and the Golden Ball”. http://storynory.com/2007/06/16/the-frog-prince/ This version is in the Public Domain and is free to read and download. The language used is a bit stilted, but is rich with vocabulary and sentence structure. It will give the students another comparison of the same tale.

Day 4: Have students work in pairs to brainstorm ideas for an original fairy tale based on The Frog Prince. Provide a variety of books about the Frog Prince that the children can read and make comparisons. Encourage imaginations to go wild. Students will describe the castles they live in and the people and other creatures they encounter. Students will make a rough draft of the three parts of their tale.

Day 5: Working in the computer lab pairs of students will write their own fairy tale. After entering text to represent each part of the fairy tale, students will view the slides as a storyboard. Students will edit their fairy tales and make notes of changes, and ideas for adding images from the image bank.

Day 6 (Editing/Polishing): Tool Factory Slide Show includes many pre-designed templates that students can choose from for their presentation. Students will add additional slides and images to polish their slide show fairy tales. Tool Factory Slide Show allows students to change the order of the slides at any time:

Step 1 - Click the Storyboard button on the Slide Show toolbar.

Step 2 - Click, hold, and drag the slides to the correct order.
Students will insert and format images. Students will type text and adjust font and size. Allow an additional day for editing, if needed.

Final Day:
The class will enjoy a Froggy Fairy Tale Day. Using the data projector each group will show their tale to the class. The teacher will present a creative critter certificate to each team.