“Twelve Goats Gruff” … “Three Billy Goats Fluff” … Learning to look closely at stories, exploring closely a single story, settings and dialogue, and performing for peers: That was all part of this year’s Folktale Day at SWS.
From our kindergarten teachers:
The kindergarten students have been engaged with an exploration of stories in reader’s workshop. We are talking a lot about looking closely at stories, thinking about what we read/see, making connections with stories, and learning from the stories we read. We’ve read and reread Paul Galdone’s The Three Billy Goats Gruff many times, each time considering the story with a new lens. Given the children’s love of this story, both kindergarten classrooms decided that this would be perfect story to share with the other kids on Folktale Day.
Mrs. Ricks’s class read different versions of the story and chose to act out a variation of the tale called The Three Billy Goats Fluff. Mr. Jere’s classroom focused on retelling the original tale and adapting the story to account for each child’s chosen role, which is how we came to write The Twelve Goats Gruff.
The kids are also learning about characters, setting, dialogue, and the changing narrative structure of stories. The experience of hearing stories again and again, as well as seeing a story acted out by peers, helps foster of true love for stories and the art of storytelling.
About Folktale Day at SWS
Years ago the teachers noticed that the students were frightened by the masks that are often around this time of year. In response to this observation, the teachers decided to focus on sharing folktales and building community on Halloween. They did this by having the kindergarten students act out stories for the pre-kindergarten students. As our school has grown, the tradition has changed a bit each year; however the focus is always on sharing stories and having the kids come together. This year we returned to our old tradition of kindergartners performing for the youngest kids at our school (PK3, PK4, and medically-complex students).