Characteristics of Fairytales | Drama-Based Pedagogy

"Today we are going to hear a story. I have some objects in here that will give you a clue about what this story is." Let a student pull out each object individually and examine them as a class. Pass around and let students feel and smell each object. The objects are straw, sticks and a brick. With each object, ask students: "Have you ever seen or heard of this object in a story? Or, do you have any guesses what story this might be?"

Describe: What are these objects?

Analyze: What could these objects be used for? What story do we see these objects in?

Relate: Which object is heaviest? Which object is lightest? If you had to build your house out of these objects, which would you choose ?

"These objects come from a story called The Three Little Pigs. Has anyone heard this story before? What kind of story is this? We are going to talk about fairytales today. Has anyone read a fairytale before? Raise hands and let them share out (write on board). What is a fairytale? (Define: a fiction story with fantastic characters or events, written for children) Is it fiction or nonfiction?"

Transition: "Alright friends, now that we know about some fairytales, we are going to hear the story of The Three Little Pigs. There are some characteristics of fairytales that I want us to listen for:

• Happily ever after

• Things happen in threes

• There is magic

• There is royalty-kings and queens

• There was a reward

• There was good versus evil

• There was a problem

• Someone made a plan to solve the problem

• The story happened somewhere long ago and far away."

Write each characteristic on the board and draw a picture to help them remember.

Explore

Interactive Oral Story Telling

Key moments to hit throughout the storytelling, be sure to hit the bolded key phrases, as they are specific fairytale elements.

Once upon a time there was a farm…

• Explore the setting of the farm.

Sound: Create the farm soundscape. Go around the circle and let each child add a sound that they think they would hear at a farm. Combine all of the sounds together to create a soundscape. Turn soundscape on and off using hand signals.
Smell: What does it smell like? Let’s all take a deep breath and smell the farm.

• On this farm, there were 3 Little Pigs- Either keep the gender neutral, or assign gender roles to avoid slipping into all male characters .

• Left home (ask students to show you with their face and bodies how mom felt when the three little pigs left home)

• On their way, the first pig was sick of walking and found some straw

• They continued on, then the second little pig was sick of walking and found some sticks

• The third little pig continued on, and found some bricks (made some bricks)

• The big bad wolf was watching as the first little pig built the house of straw

• “Little pig, little pig, let me in!”

• “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!”

• “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!!”

• Repeat for each of the little pigs’ houses

• The wolf finally came to the last house, the house made of brick

• Couldn’t blow it down

• The pigs made a plan and they put on a pot to boil, wolf climbed down the chimney, burned himself and ran away

• Happily ever after

Reflect

Describe: What happened in the story? Who were the characters? Where was the setting (where did the story take place)?

Analyze: Did you see any patterns in the story?

Relate: Why couldn’t the wolf blow down the last house?

Transition: "Alright friends, now we are going to work together as actors to tell this story. Do you think you can help me? We are going to use our bodies to tell the story in two different ways. Can we practice? The first way is by staying in our own space and acting out the story. Let’s try it. The little pig picked up his hammer and built his house. That’s the first way. The second way is by making a frozen picture, kind of like when you take pictures with a camera. I am going to count down from five and I want you to freeze like you are hammering a nail. Ready-5-4-3-2-1! Great work, friends! Are you ready?"

Image Work

Tell the story from the beginning, creating five major images, which in are bolded. Change the format of the classroom so that students are sitting in the audience, facing the ‘stage’ area, where you will build the tableaux. For each tableau, ask students what characters or objects each scene needs. They will raise their hand and say ‘this scene needs (character/object) and come onto stage and freeze like that character/object. Build each picture one student at a time, with attention to creating a picture that we can all see and understand. The moments in italics are actions that the students sitting in the audience can pantomime while the actors are on stage .

Mother and pigs leaving the house (Need pigs, mother and possibly house)

Pantomime in their seats: stacking the straw for the house.

Straw House (Need straw house, wolf and first little pig)

Wolf knocks on the door.

Audience and Wolf: “Little pig, little pig, let me in!”

Actor playing first little pig: “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!”

Audience and Wolf: “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!!”

Seated students help wolf blow house down, students playing the house fall down.

Pantomime in their seats: hammering the sticks together for the house

Stick House (Need stick house-make it bigger than last house, wolf, first and second little pigs)

Audience and Wolf: “Little pig, little pig, let me in!”

Actor playing second little pig: “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!”

Audience and Wolf: “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!!”

Seated students help wolf blow house down, students playing the house fall down.

Pantomime in their seats: build brick walls for the house

Brick House (Need brick house-biggest house, wolf and all three little pigs)

Audience and Wolf: “Little pig, little pig, let me in!”

All three little pigs: “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!”

Audience and Wolf: “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!!”

Seated students help wolf blow house down

Audience picks up wood, put it in the fire, whole class put on their pots to boil.

Wolf climbs down chimney, falls in pot and runs away never to return again!

Transition: "Great work actors! Everyone take a bow! Now that you’re experts about The Three Little Pigs, I want to see what fairytale elements we saw in the story.

Vote with Your Feet

Split the class into two groups and have them each stand on one side of the carpet. Read a statement aloud, “The Three Little Pigs started with ‘Once upon a time.’” If the students think this happened, they will cross the floor to the other side of the room. If not, they stay standing right where they are.

Go through each of the fairytale elements:

• Happily ever after

• Things happen in threes

• There is magic

• There is royalty-kings and queens

• There was a reward

• There was good versus evil

• There was a problem

• Someone made a plan to solve the problem

• The story happened somewhere long ago and far away

Reflection

Describe: What did we do today?

Analyze: What elements did we see? What elements didn’t we see?

Relate: Examine the elements that weren’t in The Three Little Pigs (royalty and magic)-what fairytales do we know that have those elements?