Jack and the Beanstalk

While the students were out of the room, we hung a paper beanstalk in the front of the room, hung a sign on the door from the giant and taped footprints down on the floor that lead to the beanstalk.  We were "igniting the fire" in hopes the students would be curious about what we were going to do that day.  Of course, it worked!  The students were full of questions.  

Ms Kneeland and I were dressed in an apron and took on the character of Jack's mother.  After talking a bit, we took the students to the carpet where our story telling campfire was burning.  The students gathered around and listened to the two of us take turns reading the story to them.  After we were finished, we reviewed with the students the fairy tale elements that they heard in the story.  The students were in engaged and shared examples from the book.  

Then we went back to our desks and began working on a cloze paragraph where the students were able to change one element of the story.  To make things a little more focused and easier to understand, the students were only able to change how "Jack" (them) were able to reach the cloud where the giant lived.  

The students had fun being creative and coming up with interesting ideas.  Some ideas were:  sling shot, bouncing off a bed, climbing a marshmallow ladder, flying in a plane, climbing a licorice rope and many more.  The students then worked on bringing their paragraph to life by creating a diorama of the scene from the story.  They finished these over the next day and then we did a gallery walk to enjoy other people's ideas.  They students had fun sharing their ideas.  

They also loved interacting with the beanstalk and pretending to climb it.  They were begging to have their picture taken with the bean stalk.