Fractured Fairy Tales--LOVE.

OK, guys, this may just be my favorite unit I've ever taught.

We talked about what we were going to do for Open House this year and decided to ixnay the Texas Unit, as it is really not in our TEKS (state standards), and 1st grade already does a lot of the same things for their Texas-themed Open House.  So back to the drawing board it was.

Part of our Texas Unit had included Texas Fairy Tales, so we finally came up with the idea to get going on one of our genre studies that are part of our new TEKS.  Hence, a FUN unit was born!

I plan Language Arts for our team, so I was the lucky winner to put all this together.

We started off by brainstorming what we already know about fairy tales/what things we often read about in the stories, etc. and ended the unit with the students following the writing process to develop their very own FRACTURED fairy tale based on a traditional one.  IT.  WAS.  AWESOME.  At least the kids thought so.  LOL.

Here are some of my favorite fractured fairy tales that we read and discussed the story elements of:

 

Three Cool Kids

by Rebecca Emberley

First, we read a traditional version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff and discussed the story elements, and then, before reading this fractured tale, I asked, "What if we rewrote the story but made the characters different?  What could they be instead of goats?"  We brainstormed, and we decided that our new story would have 3 dogs--a chihuahua, a beagle, and a bulldog.  Too funny!  They were super into rewriting the story (this was all done out loud, not written down).  The next day we read this book, which takes place in the big city, and it is too cute!  I loved that the main characters were still goats, but they were "citified" and each was interested in different things, style-wise, and had different talents.  Super cute story.

Wolf! Wolf!

by John Rocco

This is a fractured version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, which I purposely chose to use for a group lesson because I have some wolf-criers in my class who are just SO SICK at least 3 times a week.  One of whom finally actually DID throw up one day, and of course, no one believed that he was actually sick!  I'm somehow doubtful that the lesson from this story stuck, but you know.  A girl's gotta try.  This was a great book to discuss with the kids, because the author changed the point of view!  The illustrations are beautiful, too.  This may be my favorite "new" book I've read this year.

Kate and the Beanstalk

by Mary Pope Osbourne

Illustrated by Giselle Potter

I'm pretty sure my kids told me that Mary Pope Osbourne writes Magic Tree House.  Is that right?  Her name is definitely familiar.  But anyway, great book!  The kids were ALL about predicting the ending on this one! 

(Not including the credit since the words are so big!)

But dude.  If you haven't read this book, you MUST.  Seriously.  Buy it immediately or check your library.  You won't be sorry.  The kids will LOVE it.  But be forewarned--there will be LOTS of hysterical laughing.  Little hyenas.  You've been warned.  But I absolutely love this book.

 Goldilocks Returns

by Lisa Campbell Ernst

Have you ever read her books?  They're all good.  Just sayin.  But this one is SO CUTE!

Goldilocks comes back to the bears' house many years later!

I could go on and on and list tons more, but I really enjoyed these during our new unit this year and wanted to share!

I don't know that I've ever seen my kiddos so excited about a reading/writing lesson each day!  I wish I had taken pictures of everything and pictures of the kids engaged in their writing!  It was awesome.  But if you ever visited my classroom (this year, not every year), you'd see that there is scarcely time for me to snap photos when I spend most of my "free time" putting out fires and diffusing volatile situations.  Sad to say.  I guess I need to at least snap some of their final stories and artwork hanging in the hallway!

So anyway, since I'd already made most of the handouts for our students, I decided to put it all together with lesson plans, trade book recommendations, and all that jazz and post it on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Click any of the pics to check it out in my TPT store. 

Here it is in all its glory...

 

The unit is actually 30 pages long, so this is just a small sampling of what it includes.

The next 2 pages give more details about the contents.

 

I hope you got some good book recommendations you didn't know about!  What are your favorite fractured fairy tales to read/teach with??  I'd love to hear!