Fairy Tale Writing Activities
Elementary schoolkids respond to the magic, majesty and morals of classic fairy tales.These timeless tales of good and evil provide springboards to writing activities and can teach young students about the elements of good storytelling -- plot, setting and character. Read one to your grade school students and have them create original stories.
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What Is a Fairy Tale?
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Read a few classic fairy tales to your classroom. After each story, have students take note of the elements they think help make a tale a fairy tale. Encourage them to think about who the heroes and heroines are, what the end of the story is trying to say -- such as, whether each story has a moral -- where and when the stories seem to take place and whether and how magic is involved. They should come up with a list of elements commonly found in a fairy tale. Ask them to write their own short fairy tale, using as many of these elements as they can.
A New Fairy Tale
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Show your class a few clips from some animated fairy tales -- such as Disney's "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Princess and the Frog" -- that focus on the personification of animals and objects. Ask students to comment on how these animals and objects help or hinder the main character of the story. Choose one of the animated stories presented in class and have each student write a new fairy tale based upon the classic that features one of the personified animals or objects as the main character. Have the students choose the character's fairy tale adventure.
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"Who Am I?" Mobile
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Read a tale that involves many different characters, such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Jack and the Beanstalk" or "The Ugly Duckling." Discuss the characters in the story with the children. Have each child choose one character to write about. Then each child should create an image of the character's face and head out of construction paper. Each will also make three or four construction paper "talk bubbles," cut them out and hang them on string next to the head so the words appear to be what the character is saying about himself. Instruct each student to write the character descriptions for the talk bubbles in the first person. Hang each mobile from a wire hanger with string and suspend the mobiles around the room.
Make a Play
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For this exercise, split your class into groups of three or four and have each group dramatize a key event from a fairy tale you've read. Tell them to be very clear about each character's personality in the way that they create their dialogue. For example, the wicked stepmother of "Snow White" probably wouldn't say "Please" or "Thank You" to the huntsman she sends to kill her stepdaughter, and Little Red Riding Hood probably wouldn't tell the Big Bad Wolf to "Go jump in the lake!" Once each group has written its mini-play, have them present them before the class.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit Adam Taylor/Digital Vision/Getty Images
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