Goldilocks and the Three Bears

As part of our balanced literacy program, we have been focusing on having children retell the stories we read together at circle time. In the past we have had children retell and extend the text with props at the sand and water centers, with puppets, with overhead copies of the text and the overhead machine, with sequencing cards, and with pictures and sentence strips. Today children spent time retelling Goldilocks and the Three Bears by dramatizing the story with masks and props. Mrs. Oshar lead the children through a formal retell and then the children had the opportunity to continue retelling the text during free choice time. It was interesting to observe the children retell the story in the sequence we discussed at circle time, and then extend the text by improvising their own (new) version of the story.

Some curriculum this activity covered includes:

2.9 retell stories, in proper sequence,

that have been read by and with

the EL–K team, using pictures in

the book and/or props (e.g., use props

such as finger puppets or flannel-board

characters; use plastic models at the

sand table to tell the story “The

Gingerbread Man”)

D3.1 use problem-solving skills and their

imagination to create drama and

dance (e.g., try out different voices

for parts of a story or chant; find

different ways to move to music,

trying to connect the movement with

the mood and speed of the music;

create a sequence of movements)

D3.2 dramatize rhymes, stories,

legends, and folk tales from

various cultures, including their

own (e.g., use actions, pictures,

words, or puppets to tell a story

at the dramatic play centre or at

the block centre)