Teaching about Folktales

Last week, my 3rd grade spent a whole week focusing on folktales.  It was such a blast that I wanted to share just a little of what we did with you.

Our school library is relatively small so our selection of folktales is small as well.  I stopped by my local library and checked out close to 20 different books for my students to read throughout the week. 

Then I set them all up on the counter in my classrooom.

 The new display was the first thing my students noticed when they walked in on Monday morning.  It immediately got them excited about our reading lesson later on.

We started our reading lesson each day by defining a type of folktale in our reading notebooks.  Then we took some time to read several books of that type.  Because we wrote our notes first, we could then talk about what made the story we read a tall tale or a fairy tale.  It was great to hear the students talking about different aspects of the stories as we read.

We discussed four different types of folktales so Friday was a free read day.  I let the students have the entire reading class time to independently read the books I had brought in.  

It was a fun week - perfect for the week before Spring Break!