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: The Princess and the Pea

Wow, its been awhile since I did a homeschool post! Guess I've just been to busy with homeschooling! Now that we are back into the swing of things, hopefully I'll have the time to post a "Homeschool Talk" post at least once a week.

Claire's literature selection for January was the Princess and the Pea. We started by reading the traditional Hans Christian Anderson tale. Then, each week we read a different version. I came across two really good ones...

The Cowboy and the Black Eyed Pea by Johnston & Ludwig
This is a Texas tale about a cowgirl selecting a real cowboy to marry. It was really cute and very different from any other version you will find out there.

"Mattresses" found in the book Tales of the Brothers Grimm and Sisters Weird.
This one was more of the traditional prince looking for a real princess story, but he ends up not marrying her because she is too much trouble!

If you're looking for a fun book to read with your child that's not the same old thing, try one of these!

Homeschool Talk: Little Red Riding Hood

My daughter's literature selection for this month was little red riding hood. Each of the books we read were a little different take on the story. One of the big differences in all of the books was what Red was taking to her grandmother. In one book it was muffins, in one cake and wine, in one bread, etc. Our activity for the book was to make the item and then act out the book. Claire played Red, I was the mother and grandmother, Nathan was the wolf, and Chris was the huntsman.

Nathan as the wolf (Claire made the mask for him!)

Claire as Red...

She had so much fun with this! She looked forward to every Wednesday. (That's the day we do literature.)

She also made a lapbook about wolves. I downloaded it free from www.homeschoolshare.com

Next month her literature selection will be The Frog Prince. I scheduled it for December so we could go see the new Disney movie as one of our activities! She will also be doing a frog lapbook from homeschool share.

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!

Homeschool Talk: Literature Units

I love literature. I have a degree in English and I just love teaching it to my kids. My son is an avid reader so when he was in 3rd grade I started doing literature units with him. Then, I started a book club for him. Basically, we take a break from our English/Grammar workbook and read a book and do lessons on that book for 1-3 weeks. Sometimes I find lesson plans online, sometimes I make my own.

This year Claire is in the 1st grade so I decided literature units would be fun for her too. So, each month we are going to concentrate on a different fairy tale. I do literature once a week with her. So each Wednesday I'm reading her a different version of the same fairy tale and we will do an activity that goes along with it.

I'm sharing what we are doing on my blog because these units are so much fun! They are very easy to add to your curriculum or use if your child is already reading that book. I hope others will find my information helpful. I'd also like to hear your ideas for activities too.

In the "Homeschooling Corner" in my margin I have listed the literature selections for both kids for the month along with links to lesson plans and activities. I'll update this section each month.

This month Claire and I are reading The Little Red Hen. Below is our schedule for the month.

Week 1. The Little Red Hen by Byron Barton
Activity: Bake Bread


Week 2. The Little Red Hen by Jerry Pinkney
Activity: Make your own Little Red Hen Story Book


Week 3. Little Red Hen Gets Help by Kenneth Spengler
Activity: Stick puppets


Week 4. You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You:
The Little Red Hen and the Grain of Wheat
Activity: Field Trip to the Mrs. Baird's Bakery!
(We have a factory in Fort Worth)



I preread all of these books during the summer. I found most of them at the library. We have the You Read to Me, I'll Read to You book. (If you've never seen this its really cute. They have the text in two different colors. One color the child reads, one color the adult reads.) I tried to find different versions. For example, the animals that say "not I" are all different in each of these books. I made a chart for Claire so we can compare that. The patterns for the stick puppets and story book are in a Little Red Hen Unit book that I have. A link to it can be found in my "homeschool corner" section of my blog.



The activity for the first week was to bake bread. My husband has never baked bread from scratch so I told him we'd wait until the weekend to do it so he could be home to join in. So, that is what we are doing this afternoon. On Wednesday, I let Claire bake bread using frozen bread dough. I cut it into 3 strips and let her braid it. Here is how it turned out. It was a big hit at dinner!

At the end of the month I'll try to do another post that shows all of the finished activities that went along with this unit.