Virtual Activity Bundle: Fairy Tales

Fairy tales are stories of wonder and enchantment. Animals talk, princes and princesses fight (or befriend!) dragons and clever creatures outwit villains. In this Virtual Activity Bundle, I’ll share classic tales, some newer tales and some tales with a twist!

Books

  • The Three Little Pigs” retold by Paul Galdone
    This is the classic “The Three Little Pigs” who build homes and the hungry wolf who wants to eat them.
  • Happy Birthday, Big Bad Wolf” by Frank Asch
    The author took the story of “The Three Little Pigs” and made some changes to surprise the reader. This pig family finds a new way to deal with the big bad wolf!
  • Three Billy Goats Gruff” retold by Paul Galdone
    Three goats must figure out how to cross a bridge guarded by a mean troll.
  • The Ugly Duckling: A Retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tale” written by Susan Blackaby, illustrated by Charlene DeLage
    This is a story about a creature that doesn’t fit in. No one appreciates him until he grows up and discovers there is a place where he belongs.
  • A Treasury of Fairy Tales: 17 of the Best-Loved Classic Stories” by Alex Fonteyn
    This collection includes “Cinderella,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Thumbelina,” “The Snow Queen,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Hansel and Gretel” and “Puss in Boots.”
  • A Treasury of Fairy TalesThe Little Red Hen” by Paul Galdone
    The Little Ren Hen works very hard. She asks other animals for help, but they are too lazy. So she does all the work needed to bake a cake. When it is done and she does not share the cake, the other animals realize their mistake.

Tumblebooks: Fairy Tales Playlist

(To access this playlist, go to the TumbleBooks database and type “Fairy Tales (Playlist)” into the TumbleSearch bar.)

Books in this playlist include

  • “Clever Beatrice”
  • “Boy Soup”
  • “Jack and the Beanstalk”
  • “Burro’s Tortillas”
  • “Three Silly Billies” (So good—a pun-filled twist on The Three Billy Goats Gruff with Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Three Bears all putting in appearances.)
  • “Once Upon a Breath”
  • Back to School Story Time“The Paper Bag Princess” (My favorite, since the princess saves the prince!)
  • “The Paper Crane”

Back to School: Story Time
You can listen to 30 fairy tales on this Freegal album by The Hit Crew.

Music

Hands Up / The Best of Friends by Justin Fletcher
Justin FletcherThis album on Freegal includes “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” “The Ugly Duckling” and “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.”

Kootie Bear Children’s Movie Theme Tunes Collection by Rhymes ‘n’ Rhythm
This album on Freegal includes many songs from Disney fairy tale movies.

Videos

Little Red Riding Hood (4 minutes)
This is the classic tale of a little girl who meets a wolf on her way to visit her grandmother.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff (6 minutes)
This is another version of the classic tale of three goats.

David Bowie Narrates Disney’s Peter and The Wolf” (15 minutes)
This is a story told with music. It was written by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936. The narrator tells a children’s story, while the orchestra illustrates it. Each character has theme music played by a different instrument.

Activities

Build a Bridge for the Three Billy Goats Gruff

What do you have available to build with? Do you have LEGO bricks, wooden blocks, craft sticks, cardboard boxes, paper tubes, plastic straws or paper? This list could go on and on. What can you use for goats? I twisted some pipe cleaners together, but you could use stones, crumpled paper, blocks, small boxes or plastic farm animals. (It doesn’t have to look like a goat.) You just want 3 items of various sizes.  Will your bridge hold your goats? Besides being fun, this is science and engineering at work!

Here are my bridge and goats. I taped 5 popsicle sticks together and set them on top of two paper cups to make a bridge. My troll is a crumpled piece of green tissue paper.

My second bridge is folded paper, and the goats are crumpled tissue paper. 

As you create different bridges, see how much weight each bridge will hold and compare them to see which is sturdiest!

More bridge examples

Other activities

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