June 2019 - Fairy Tales, Folktales, Tall Tales and Rabbit Trails!
It's June! The nights are warmer. Maybe you are camping or at least sitting around your little backyard fire pit toasting marshmallows. Or maybe you are lying out on a blanket in the yard in the evening, slathered with something citronella-ish, counting bats and waiting for the stars to come out. Or maybe you are driving a whole day to get to a family reunion or vacation and you need some ammunition to while away the car time. Enter fairy tales, folktales and tall tales!
*What I am posting are things we've read or done over the years. There's no way you could cram this into one month! This is just a list to inspire you.
Fairy Tale Read Alouds:
Andrew Lang books - though I do think we only own the Blue Fairy book,we got others out of the library on occasion.
Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales
Grimm's Brothers fairy tales
Perrault's Fairy Tales
***************
I am not sure of the technical difference between fairy tales and folk tales is, but here are some stories that get called folk tales.
Stories from Around the World - my kids loved this one and we would pore over the map that showed where the different stories came from. Nice geography tie in!
American Tall Tales - Jim Weiss has a great recording of these for children.
Favorite North American Indian folktales Legends -
Celtic Treasures - Jim Weiss recording. We had another wonderful recording told by an Irish woman. Alas, I can not find it anywhere on the internet and I don't know where it could be in our hosue. We haven't listened to it in years. I just can't remember the name!
Anansi Tales - fun stories from West Africa. We got Anansi stories out of the library, usually in picture book form.
The Wonder Child & Other Jewish Fairy Tales
English Fairy Tales - Joseph Jacobs
*****************
You can also go into animal tales since so many of the fairy and folk tales involve animals:
Thornton Burgess wrote many charming tales, books of them, with animal characters.
If you can get your hands on Arthur Scott Bailey's Animals stories they are much in the same vein only we liked them better! I'v got an old collection of his stories from Oak Meadow which we read through several times.
And of course Beatrix Potter or Rudyard Kipling wrote lovely stories featuring animals.
If you want to read great literature inspired by fairy tales here are some.They can be read alouds for elementary school children or independent reading for middle to high school students.
Anything by George MacDonald - we loved The Light Princess and At the Back of the North Wind.
Gwinna by Barbara Berger is stunning!
The Prydain Chronicles - if you made this a summer of reading through this series, it will be a beautiful, beautiful summer! These were my favorite when I was in middle school and I read them three times over the years to my kids.
Of course, we can't not include The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings!
The Boggart by Susan Cooper - we had this on audio and my kids listened to it over and over again. This definitely made a long hours in the car enjoyable. David Rintool is a perfect narrator!
Middle School level books by Edward Eager - are full of the good kind of magic.
The Spooky Side
You can segue into ghost stories. If you don't like them, then don't! Or you can wait until October. But I am ok with the kind of ghost stories you can tell around a campfire.
Our very favorite was this collection. We read this book over and over again. Spooky Stories for A Dark and Stormy Night.
Goosebumps short stories - I had always heard terrible things about the Goosebumps series and maybe there aren't good, we actually never got into them, but I picked up this collection of Goosebumps short stories at a used book sale and we enjoyed them a lot! Again, I can't find the book now and apparently there are many volumes of Goosebump story collections, so I am not sure which one to recommend.
My kids went through a fascination with trolls for a while. We read the D'Aulaires' book on Trolls.
End of Spooky suggestions!
************************
Poetry
Some folktales or legends are told in poem form. One of my very favorite resources was a book that is oop but was originally published by Calvert, the oldest homeschooling curriculum provider out there I think. It is called Stories in Verse edited by Max T. Hohn. If you can get your hands on this, it will be a treasure you'll want to keep. He presents such an extensive number of narrative poem, including ballads, in such thorough and accessible way. All the old classics are here and lots of more obscure poems that will delight you.
If you can't get this book then The Harp and the Laurel by Laura Berquist is pretty good. It is not as in depth in teaching about poetry but it has lots of old favorites and some nicely themed Catholic poems.
***********************
History/Geography/Culture tie in- these stories are all so old and come from specific times and places. So it is pretty easy to get interested in a particular country or time and place via these stories.
Math Tie in:
One feature of many of these stories has to do with money. Many times a character is poor and going to out to find their fortune. There are often references to pennies or schillings or old fashion currency. Gold and silver get mentioned a lot too.
Here is a quick, probably aimed at young teens but younger kids could watch it, video that uses Harry Potter as a jumping off point to explain old British currency.
Here's a little longer video with a gentle teacher of English as a Second Language teaching about both the present day currency and old fashion currency often referred to in literature in England.
If You Made a Million - from the same guy who wrote How Much is a Million.
The Story of Money - by Betsy Maestro. This author tends to write good basic explanatory books for kids.
Whatever Happened to Penny Candy - middle schoolers to high schoolers an easy to read explanation of basic economics.
In the summer of course it is traditional for children to set up lemonade stands. Here's a book that has a twist on that idea. I never read this book to my kids, but it just caught my eye.
For hot clammy days indoors your kids could play at their math station or you could strew some fun worksheets from Enchanted Learning.
Rabbit trails into music
There's a math connection to poetry and music as well. If you are reading narrative poetry, you could focus on learning meter by discovering the rhythmic patterns in the poems. For the sung ballads, learn some basic music theory which also involves counting, fractions and patterns.
Here's a link to beginning to think about meter.
Here's a link to an on line music theory program. This gets meaty fast and is good for older children. If your child becomes intrigued by learning about music, Enchanted Learning has some fun print outs of mostly learning to identify notes and scales.
Good sources for folk music - try your local library for their cd collection.
American Folk Music from the Smithsonian Collections.
In the summer around here, there are many free or low cost children or family oriented concerts in parks and in town centers. I'd try to frequent these as much as possible. They usually feature children's music, some old folksongs and some bluegrass or old timey music. Sometimes they feature local brass bands who play military time marches.
We loved the Putamayo Children's cd series. We had the European Playground which we enjoyed a lot.
Copy Work
Here's a link to some beloved narrative poems you can use for copy work.
If you want to look into more ballads and folk music, Ambleside Online had a great list of selections.
Liturgical Year:
Go to this link at Universalis and scroll down to the month of June.
In my diocese we are celebrating the Solemnity of the Ascension on Sunday, June 2nd.
*What I am posting are things we've read or done over the years. There's no way you could cram this into one month! This is just a list to inspire you.
Fairy Tale Read Alouds:
 |
| As I recall, the very first story is rather gruesome, but the following ones are better. |
Andrew Lang books - though I do think we only own the Blue Fairy book,we got others out of the library on occasion.
Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales
Grimm's Brothers fairy tales
Perrault's Fairy Tales
***************
I am not sure of the technical difference between fairy tales and folk tales is, but here are some stories that get called folk tales.
Stories from Around the World - my kids loved this one and we would pore over the map that showed where the different stories came from. Nice geography tie in!
American Tall Tales - Jim Weiss has a great recording of these for children.
Favorite North American Indian folktales Legends -
Celtic Treasures - Jim Weiss recording. We had another wonderful recording told by an Irish woman. Alas, I can not find it anywhere on the internet and I don't know where it could be in our hosue. We haven't listened to it in years. I just can't remember the name!
Anansi Tales - fun stories from West Africa. We got Anansi stories out of the library, usually in picture book form.
The Wonder Child & Other Jewish Fairy Tales
English Fairy Tales - Joseph Jacobs
*****************
You can also go into animal tales since so many of the fairy and folk tales involve animals:
 |
| I have a fond memory of reading this book out loud to my kids one day when we had a picnic in our living room. We had planned one for the outdoors but the weather didn't cooperate. I remember how charmed my kids were with this book. |
Thornton Burgess wrote many charming tales, books of them, with animal characters.
If you can get your hands on Arthur Scott Bailey's Animals stories they are much in the same vein only we liked them better! I'v got an old collection of his stories from Oak Meadow which we read through several times.
And of course Beatrix Potter or Rudyard Kipling wrote lovely stories featuring animals.
If you want to read great literature inspired by fairy tales here are some.They can be read alouds for elementary school children or independent reading for middle to high school students.
Anything by George MacDonald - we loved The Light Princess and At the Back of the North Wind.
Gwinna by Barbara Berger is stunning!
The Prydain Chronicles - if you made this a summer of reading through this series, it will be a beautiful, beautiful summer! These were my favorite when I was in middle school and I read them three times over the years to my kids.
Of course, we can't not include The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings!
The Boggart by Susan Cooper - we had this on audio and my kids listened to it over and over again. This definitely made a long hours in the car enjoyable. David Rintool is a perfect narrator!
Middle School level books by Edward Eager - are full of the good kind of magic.
The Spooky Side
You can segue into ghost stories. If you don't like them, then don't! Or you can wait until October. But I am ok with the kind of ghost stories you can tell around a campfire.
Our very favorite was this collection. We read this book over and over again. Spooky Stories for A Dark and Stormy Night.
Goosebumps short stories - I had always heard terrible things about the Goosebumps series and maybe there aren't good, we actually never got into them, but I picked up this collection of Goosebumps short stories at a used book sale and we enjoyed them a lot! Again, I can't find the book now and apparently there are many volumes of Goosebump story collections, so I am not sure which one to recommend.
My kids went through a fascination with trolls for a while. We read the D'Aulaires' book on Trolls.
End of Spooky suggestions!
************************
Poetry
Some folktales or legends are told in poem form. One of my very favorite resources was a book that is oop but was originally published by Calvert, the oldest homeschooling curriculum provider out there I think. It is called Stories in Verse edited by Max T. Hohn. If you can get your hands on this, it will be a treasure you'll want to keep. He presents such an extensive number of narrative poem, including ballads, in such thorough and accessible way. All the old classics are here and lots of more obscure poems that will delight you.
If you can't get this book then The Harp and the Laurel by Laura Berquist is pretty good. It is not as in depth in teaching about poetry but it has lots of old favorites and some nicely themed Catholic poems.
***********************
History/Geography/Culture tie in- these stories are all so old and come from specific times and places. So it is pretty easy to get interested in a particular country or time and place via these stories.
Math Tie in:
One feature of many of these stories has to do with money. Many times a character is poor and going to out to find their fortune. There are often references to pennies or schillings or old fashion currency. Gold and silver get mentioned a lot too.
Here is a quick, probably aimed at young teens but younger kids could watch it, video that uses Harry Potter as a jumping off point to explain old British currency.
Here's a little longer video with a gentle teacher of English as a Second Language teaching about both the present day currency and old fashion currency often referred to in literature in England.
If You Made a Million - from the same guy who wrote How Much is a Million.
The Story of Money - by Betsy Maestro. This author tends to write good basic explanatory books for kids.
Whatever Happened to Penny Candy - middle schoolers to high schoolers an easy to read explanation of basic economics.
In the summer of course it is traditional for children to set up lemonade stands. Here's a book that has a twist on that idea. I never read this book to my kids, but it just caught my eye.
For hot clammy days indoors your kids could play at their math station or you could strew some fun worksheets from Enchanted Learning.
Rabbit trails into music
There's a math connection to poetry and music as well. If you are reading narrative poetry, you could focus on learning meter by discovering the rhythmic patterns in the poems. For the sung ballads, learn some basic music theory which also involves counting, fractions and patterns.
Here's a link to beginning to think about meter.
Here's a link to an on line music theory program. This gets meaty fast and is good for older children. If your child becomes intrigued by learning about music, Enchanted Learning has some fun print outs of mostly learning to identify notes and scales.
Good sources for folk music - try your local library for their cd collection.
American Folk Music from the Smithsonian Collections.
In the summer around here, there are many free or low cost children or family oriented concerts in parks and in town centers. I'd try to frequent these as much as possible. They usually feature children's music, some old folksongs and some bluegrass or old timey music. Sometimes they feature local brass bands who play military time marches.
We loved the Putamayo Children's cd series. We had the European Playground which we enjoyed a lot.
Copy Work
Here's a link to some beloved narrative poems you can use for copy work.
If you want to look into more ballads and folk music, Ambleside Online had a great list of selections.
Liturgical Year:
Go to this link at Universalis and scroll down to the month of June.
In my diocese we are celebrating the Solemnity of the Ascension on Sunday, June 2nd.
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