From the Mixed Up Files of Ms. A.J. King...Fairy Tale Style!

I'm going to play a little catch up with this post. I didn't post anything about the last unit my team and I put together for the last nine weeks of school. We focused on the differences in fantasy and reality by focusing on fairy tales from all around the world!  Our school focuses on overarching themes for each quarter and every grade level collectively puts up displays for our parents to see what we have been learning when they visit on Exhibit Nights. These are pictures from our Fantasy and Reality Exhibit in the first grade hallway.

From Jack and the Beanstalk: An interactive exhibit where students can label the parts of a plant on Jack's beanstalk.

 One of our European Fairy Tales and Folk Tale areas featuring Stone Soup and Rapunzel. There is a synopsis of each story we studied paired with each of the exhibit pieces the students created. Some classes even wrote alternate endings to the tales! 

 On Exhibit Night when all the parents came to check out our work, we  served Three Bears Porridge in the Fantasy and Reality Sweet Shop! The Sweet Shop featured our sweetest characters, the Gingerbread Man and Gingerbread Girl! One of my teammates even had her class come up with recipes for making gingerbread men.

 Here is a hodgepodge of activities from the Three Little Pigs, Princess and the Pea, The Frog Prince, and The Lion and the Mouse as well as an alternate ending for the Three Little Pigs.

 This wall was one of my favorite parts of the exhibit! It featured American Tall Tales and Folk Tales.

From the legend of Johnny Appleseed: This was a joint project between my class, another one of my first grade teammate's class, and the art teacher.

Another interactive exhibit where students could stand next to Paul Bunyan to compare their heights.

 Gotta love the Babe the Big Blue Ox! The art teachers had our students make Babes for the exhibit.

Sponge painted castles from art class!

I thought the castles from the art teachers were so cute that I had my some of my kiddos re-create them in a large scale version for our exhibit.  Another teammate contributed some of her girls princess artwork for the windows. We thought it was a little Rapunzel-esque! 

 My class measured the Gingerbread Man using non-standard units while we studied that story in our class. They loved these giant gingerbread men. I made a variation of the Measure Mrs. Carroll activity from Cara at The First Grade Parade.

I wish I could post the video I took of two of my boys who made a rap to Little Miss Muffet, but I don't have consent from the district to show faces.  You know you have really reached the students when they are choosing to do the things you have taught them in their free time and in a way that really relates to them.  It sounds funny, but I was so touched by their little rap.  It just makes my little teacher heart happy :-)