- Toddler
Global Fable Fun
Learning Areas:
- Literacy
Overview
What is this activity?
ECSEL Standards
What skills are being enhanced? What knowledge is gained?
Materials
What do you need to prepare for this activity?
Instructions
Step by step guide
ECSEL Prompts
What questions can you ask to promote ECSEL thinking and discussions?
Extended Learning
How can you extend children’s thinking?
Overview
Explore cultural fables with this creative literacy activity!
ECSEL Standards & Learning Goals
What skills are being enhanced & what knowledge is being gained through this activity?
Emotional Understanding
Children will begin to be able to identify which of the four basic emotions (happy, sad, scared, angry) that the prince felt while looking for his princess from The Princess and the Pea book.
Empathy & Prosocial Skills
Children will be able to practice taking turns sharing their thoughts about the book with teacher guidance and support.
CASEL Standards
Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills
Materials
- The Princess and the Pea [1] by Rachel Isadora
- Printed images representing Africa: people, culture, landscape, traditions, etc.
Instructions:
- To prepare for this activity, place the The Princess and the Pea book by Rachel Isadora in the circle time area.
- To introduce this activity, read The Princess and the Pea book by Rachel Isadora to the children. While reading, use prompts such as:
- What colors do you see on this page?
- Do their clothes look the same as ours or are they different?
- What language do you think they are speaking in this book?
- What animals do you see on this page? When we look outside, do we see the same animals?
- What emotions do you see in the pictures? I see happy faces. Can anyone find a sad face?
- After reading the book, compare and contrast the children in the classroom and the printed images. Support children in identifying these differences by using prompts such as:
- This is a picture of people from Africa just like the people from the book.
- Are their clothes the same as yours? Are the colors the same? What colors do you see?
- These people have brown eyes. Do we all have brown eyes? What other eye colors do our friends have? I see blue, green, brown, and hazel.
- Everyone is different and that is what makes us all special!
- What else do you see in the pictures? Do you see any different animals?
- Encourage children to continue the conversation about differences while outside on the playground. Verbalize your observations by identifying and opening the conversation about the ways that our playground is much different than the outdoors in the book.
ECSEL Prompts
ECSEL Prompts are helpful questions & guiding statements you can use to provoke children’s thinking about emotions. These prompts are related to this specific activity.
Thank you for listening quietly while your friend was talking. That was very kind!
Do you think the prince was feeling happy or sad when he couldn’t find his princess?
Extended Learning
Use these questions & ideas to extend children’s learning!
To extend children’s thinking, cut t-shirt shapes out of construction paper. Guide the children in decorating their shirts with markers and other age-appropriate art materials. Discuss how each child’s shirt is different and unique just like the clothing worn in the book.