Ask Me About Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Today we visited Tennessee and read a Cinderella story called Smoky Mountain Rose, by Alan Schroeder.  We talked about similarities and differences in the traditional Cinderella story and this version.  We looked at other versions of Cinderella from all over the world.  We even watched a short clip of the story of Cinderella told through music and dance.  We talked about how folktales are a part of different cultures. We worked in groups to analyze different Cinderella stories we have in our classroom library to identify differences and similarities in the settings, characters, the magic and the shoe. Then, we thought of our own original version of the story.  We made story maps of a Cinderella story we would like to write.  Several children shared their versions with the class, and we enjoyed hearing about everything from alien Cinderellas, to dinosaur Cinderellas.  
We worked with story problems in math with more than one answer once again. We worked independently to show at least three different ways the problem could be solved, and wrote number sentences for each. 
Today we also learned about empathy by reading a billy goat Gruff story.  This story had the troll threatening to eat the billy goats if he heard them crossing the bridge because he was not able to sleep with all that noise.  The mother billy goat thought about how she felt when she didn't get sleep and was able to work out the problem with her goat children.  Ask me to tell you about how the noise problem was solved, and why it's important to think about how others' feel when solving problems.

Have a nice evening!
Juliet

Here's a clip of the Cinderella ballet.  A story told through dance and music!  I love it!