Fairy Tale Lessons & Recipes

I discovered a wonderful book at our library over the holidays. Its called Fairy Tale Feasts by Jane Yolen. Last year Claire did a different fairy tale lesson each month. Each week we would read a different version of a classic fairy tale and she made lapbooks to go with them. Since we were moving into the new house at the beginning of school I didn't plan for anything like that this year. I was just trying to cover the basics. She really missed it though so we started "Literature" again this semester using the Fairy Tale Feasts book. Its working great. Claire LOVES to cook!

The first week we read The Runaway Pancake and made pancakes for dinner. She read the recipe and learned about measurement. The book also has sidebars that tell about the origins of the stories.

Today we are reading Diamonds and Toads and we'll be making cinnamon toast with blueberries and pineapple. This isn't the recipe in the book. The book has a french toast recipe, but I bought some yummy cinnamon bread yesterday so we are using it! The blue berries represent the pearls in the story and the pineapple represents the diamonds.

What I like most about this book is the tales in it are not your everyday, heard it a million times fairy tales. Most of these Claire hasn't heard before. The recipes are pretty kid-friendly too.

The books were also published separately...Fairy Tale Breakfasts, Fairy Tale Dinners, Fairy Tale Desserts, Fairy Tale Lunches. The one book includes all the recipes of the individual books plus some.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Fairy-Tale-Feasts-Literary-Cookbook/dp/1566566436

In addition to Fairy Tale Feasts we will also be using the Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook and reading some of the stories that go with the recipes. We'll be making Goose Juice and Moose Juice (The Sleep Book) and Schlottz's Knots (Did I ever tell you how lucky you are) and many others! I'll try to remember to take pictures and do another post about how it all turns out.

Here's the amazon link to the Green Eggs and Ham cookbook: http://www.amazon.com/Green-Eggs-Cookbook-Georgeanne-Brennan/dp/B001I8C588/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294858689&sr=1-1

At the library I also saw a Little House cookbook and a Boxcar children cookbook. I'm thinking of incorporating the Little House one next year. Claire isn't very fond of reading so I like to add these fun things to encourage her to read.

If you know of any other literature lessons that involve cooking I'd love to hear about them!

Homeschool Talk: Fairy Tales

I've mentioned before that Claire is studying fairy tales this year. Yes, studying! :) We are reading different versions and comparing them.

This month is Cinderella. There are LOTS of versions of Cinderella out there. Here are a few we are using:

Cinderella by Michele Marineau (a modern Cinderella)

Cinderella by Ruth Sanderson

Bigfoot Cinderrrrella by Tony Johnston and James Warhola (This one is really funny!)

Adelita by Tomie de Paola (A Mexican Cinderella Story)

and of course Walt Disney's Cinderella! (I have a modern Disney book as well as one from when I was a kids so we can compare the differences in the characters and the way they drew them.)

I have some Cinderella resources in the margin of my blog. These are free lessons and printables.

For each fairy tale I make a chart and Claire records the differences in the books. Here is the Cinderella one along with the Jack & the Beanstalk and Little Red Hen...

Now that we've started doing lapbooks we are also going to do a lapbook for each fairy tale. We are doing an Autumn on for Cinderella. (just because that's the one I started in the class I took) We will be doing one on wolves with Little Red Riding Hood and one on frogs for the Princess and the Frog.

Claire loves her "literature class" this year. These stories have been a great way to make learning fun!