Bring fairy tales to life! Spark creative book reports! Young readers track plot and characters with imaginative illustrations. A great prop for storytelling, too.

• 1.

  Read a fairy tale, either individually or as a class. Identify and talk about the main ideas and characters in the fairy tale. Choose several of the most important facts, scenes, or characters from the story. Select several of these ideas that best tell about the fairy tale's plot. Use these ideas to create a story board.

• 2.

  Divide poster board into columns and rows to form your story board sections by measuring with a tool such as a ruler. Outline sections with Crayola® Colored Pencils.

• 3.

  In each section, use Crayola Colored Pencils or Color Sticks to draw and color in pictures using that depict the most important aspects of your story from beginning to end. Include important details to show that you understand what happened in the story, which characters were involved, and how the story ended.

• 4.

  Type or write captions that tell about each picture. Cut out the captions and glue onto the story board.

• 5.

  Retell your fairy tale to younger children. Use your story board as a prop to show important events in the plot.

Standards

• LA: Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
• LA: Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.
• LA: Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.
• LA: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
• LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• LA: Determine the main ideas and supporting details of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
• VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.
• VA: Select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning.

Adaptations

• Have a wide selection of fairy tales available in the classroom for students and groups to select from when preparing to carry out the activity apart from the whole class.
• While working in small groups, challenge students to re-write their self-selected fairy tale from the perspective of another character. Design new scenery and costumes using Crayola Colored Pencils and crayons. Use recycled materials to create costumes. Students should be prepared to act out their original version to classmates.
• Challenge students to write an original fairy tale, but leave out the illustrations. Have classmates create the illustrations when the original story is read to them.
• Take a character from one fairy tale and insert him into a different fairy tale. How does he interact with the characters that were originally in the fairy tale? How do the original characters welcome him into their world? How does his presence in the story alter the fairy tale? Students collaborate to generate ideas and revise the story.