One really successful series of lessons this term has been the literacy work on Cinderella. I started by telling them the fairy tale of Cinderella, using objects to represent key events (as shown in the picture, plus an invitation which seems to have got lost before I could take a photo of the display!). They created a story board to help them remember the plot and practised telling the story to a partner. I then told them or read them The Blue Fish, Cinderlad and the Glass Hill, Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters and Yeh-Shen. After each story, they filled in a grid with the key characters and events, to help them to compare and contrast the stories. We also made pumpkin glyphs with different parts of the carriage representing different aspects of the stories. They created a story map for The Blue Fish and filled in a worksheet comparing the two sisters in Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters. I also briefly told them the stories of The Talking Eggs and Fair, Brown and Trembling.
We unpicked what was similar about all the stories and what were the essential parts of a Cinderella story. They used that knowledge to plan their own version. Some of them were very inventive - nerds who had lost their maths book, a motorbike race and singing competitions. They then wrote the stories in their books. Over the last three days of term, they used the laptops to type up the stories and painted illustrations for their books. In small groups, I helped the children to stitch the pages of their book together. On the final day, they stuck their text and illustrations into the book and shared their books with the Year 3 classes.
Almost all the children created a book that they were very proud of. Apart from one afternoon when they got a bit restless, they were motivated and focused on the task and the classroom had a very calm, productive atmosphere.
I think the success of the project came from the quality texts that were used, the visual activities that helped them to understand the stories and the time given to produce an extended piece of work with a real audience.
We unpicked what was similar about all the stories and what were the essential parts of a Cinderella story. They used that knowledge to plan their own version. Some of them were very inventive - nerds who had lost their maths book, a motorbike race and singing competitions. They then wrote the stories in their books. Over the last three days of term, they used the laptops to type up the stories and painted illustrations for their books. In small groups, I helped the children to stitch the pages of their book together. On the final day, they stuck their text and illustrations into the book and shared their books with the Year 3 classes.
Almost all the children created a book that they were very proud of. Apart from one afternoon when they got a bit restless, they were motivated and focused on the task and the classroom had a very calm, productive atmosphere.
I think the success of the project came from the quality texts that were used, the visual activities that helped them to understand the stories and the time given to produce an extended piece of work with a real audience.
I've added my planning and the story outline posters I created (see literacy display above) to the TES resource bank - links on right. Hopefully there will also be a display outside my classroom of some of the work the children produced throughout the unit - I'll put up a photo when it's done!
If you download any of my resources from TES, please leave a brief rating - I'd really appreciate the feedback. Thanks!
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