Fairy Tale Unit: Rapunzel, Hansel & Gretel, Three Little Pigs Activities

8 Responses

  1. Nicole says:

    Love this! I have adored fairy tales since I was a little girl and still love them now. I looked at the book you suggested on Amazon, but it doesn't list what stories are in it. Would you mind letting me know? Also, are they the "actual" tales or watered-down retellings? Thanks so much. 🙂

  2. Nicole says:

    Love this! I have adored fairy tales since I was a little girl and still love them now. I looked at the book you suggested on Amazon, but it doesn't list what stories are in it. Would you mind letting me know? Also, are they the "actual" tales or watered-down retellings? Thanks so much. 🙂

  3. Hi Nicole,The Classic Children's Stories are retold versions of Andersen and Grimm's tales. The stories include The Little Mermaid, The Frog Prince, Rapunzel, Nutcracker, Cinderella, Peter and the Wolf, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, The Emperor's New Clothes, Snow White, The Night Before Christmas, The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The other book I have (The Children's Treasury) has 48 Fairy Tales, plus Aesop's Fables and Nonsense Verses. I've had to use this about half the time since the other book has so few tales, comparatively. Since there are so many more tales, there are fewer illustrations per story and the illustrations are smaller (rather than full size as in the other book). According to the introduction (of The C.T), "The rhymes and stories in this book come from traditional sources, brought up to date, where necessary while still keeping to the oral tradition of story telling."I would say that the first book has slightly simpler vocabulary and gorgeous illustrations. The vocabulary of the second book is slightly more sophisticated. Here's a random sentence from Cinderella from the Children's Treasury: "Her sisters knew her at once. Filled with astonishment, mingled with no little alarm, they threw themselves at her feet, begging her pardon for all their former kindness." — So, it's just a bit more sophisticated than some of the Disney version we have lying around which is why I've chosen to use these versions. The teacherfilebox has versions of these stories but they are overly-simplified because the richness of the vocabulary. There are probably good collections of Andersen and Grimm's tales but to be honest I didn't look through those. I just used the collections we've had for ages. Oh, but on another note, I have the Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang (that my Mom bought for me in England when I was around 10-12). These tales are probably closer to the "original" and I read one story, but it was still too difficult for my 5 year old — and completely beyond my 3 year old because of the language style. Nonetheless, they have the original endings… which are completely different than the Disney renditions!!One final thing that I didn't add to this post is that we've also been listening to Natasha do her readings of these stories at storynory.com. It's an awesome, wonderful free site filled with such a huge selection of children's stories. I burned CDs and we listen to them in the car daily.Hope that helps,Liesl

  4. Hi Nicole,The Classic Children's Stories are retold versions of Andersen and Grimm's tales. The stories include The Little Mermaid, The Frog Prince, Rapunzel, Nutcracker, Cinderella, Peter and the Wolf, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, The Emperor's New Clothes, Snow White, The Night Before Christmas, The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The other book I have (The Children's Treasury) has 48 Fairy Tales, plus Aesop's Fables and Nonsense Verses. I've had to use this about half the time since the other book has so few tales, comparatively. Since there are so many more tales, there are fewer illustrations per story and the illustrations are smaller (rather than full size as in the other book). According to the introduction (of The C.T), "The rhymes and stories in this book come from traditional sources, brought up to date, where necessary while still keeping to the oral tradition of story telling."I would say that the first book has slightly simpler vocabulary and gorgeous illustrations. The vocabulary of the second book is slightly more sophisticated. Here's a random sentence from Cinderella from the Children's Treasury: "Her sisters knew her at once. Filled with astonishment, mingled with no little alarm, they threw themselves at her feet, begging her pardon for all their former kindness." — So, it's just a bit more sophisticated than some of the Disney version we have lying around which is why I've chosen to use these versions. The teacherfilebox has versions of these stories but they are overly-simplified because the richness of the vocabulary. There are probably good collections of Andersen and Grimm's tales but to be honest I didn't look through those. I just used the collections we've had for ages. Oh, but on another note, I have the Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang (that my Mom bought for me in England when I was around 10-12). These tales are probably closer to the "original" and I read one story, but it was still too difficult for my 5 year old — and completely beyond my 3 year old because of the language style. Nonetheless, they have the original endings… which are completely different than the Disney renditions!!One final thing that I didn't add to this post is that we've also been listening to Natasha do her readings of these stories at storynory.com. It's an awesome, wonderful free site filled with such a huge selection of children's stories. I burned CDs and we listen to them in the car daily.Hope that helps,Liesl

  5. Nicole says:

    Thanks so much for all of the information! I have a fairy tale book coming soon in the mail; once it comes I'll have to compare the stories and see if we have any gaps. I'm such a sucker for good illustations! We don't read any of the Disney versions, so have been introducing the age-appropriate tales very slowly. Thanks again! 🙂

  6. Nicole says:

    Thanks so much for all of the information! I have a fairy tale book coming soon in the mail; once it comes I'll have to compare the stories and see if we have any gaps. I'm such a sucker for good illustations! We don't read any of the Disney versions, so have been introducing the age-appropriate tales very slowly. Thanks again! 🙂

  7. Hi Nicole,I was reading from The Children's Treasury at lunch this afternoon — and guess what??? I noticed that these stories were taken from The Blue, Red and Yellow Fairy books. I hadn't realized that when I wrote you back this morning. But the language is not nearly as antiquated as the version (of the Blue Fairy Book) that I have from my Mom. We read a strange story today (The Tale of a Youth who Set Out to Learn what Fear Was)… and both LD and DD enjoyed it. We had a long discussion about it since it was quite a strange tale. Kind regards,Liesl

  8. Hi Nicole,I was reading from The Children's Treasury at lunch this afternoon — and guess what??? I noticed that these stories were taken from The Blue, Red and Yellow Fairy books. I hadn't realized that when I wrote you back this morning. But the language is not nearly as antiquated as the version (of the Blue Fairy Book) that I have from my Mom. We read a strange story today (The Tale of a Youth who Set Out to Learn what Fear Was)… and both LD and DD enjoyed it. We had a long discussion about it since it was quite a strange tale. Kind regards,Liesl

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *