The Boy Who Cried Wolf - a 2 for 1 Lesson

Out of all of the fairytales I've ever heard, retold, or read, The Boy Who Cried Wolf is one of my all-time favorites.  This is because it serves its purpose in such a succinct, simple way...it provides an entertaining storyline centered around something mischievous we've all done (lying) with a well-deserved ending that, for many kids, imparts a lifelong lesson.

When I hung out with a group of four beginner Italian kids a few days ago, we switched things up a bit.  After doodling for awhile, I introduced them to one of my childhood favorite games: Hot Potato.  I tore apart my kids' bedroom looking for one plastic potato (I know that somewhere in that abyss there are at least five lurking), but found nothing.  So I chose the next best thing:

one of the Barbapapa characters--Don't ask me to recall the name.
I think it's BarbaZoo, but I wouldn't bet the house on it.

The kids tossed him around until there was only one left standing:

Then we read the story--

I must admit, I am partial to anything written or illustrated by the great James Marshall.  His language and visual depictions are perfection, in my opinion.  While reading, I jotted down any new words we encountered on our vocabulary chart:

Of course, their favorite was "Help! Help! Help!"

After the read aloud, the kids had a snack:

And we wrote down some applicable new vocabulary words:

Which were a nice addition to the other words we'd from our discussion before reading the book:

After cleaning up, we moved onto the activity--I'd brough paper bags and a printable template for making a wolf puppet. (You can find the template here: http://www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/paper_bag_wolf_puppet.htm), but you gotta get your own paper bags.

The lesson was a hit.  I decided to use the same book with another student of mine the day after.  She's three years old, and when we hang out, it's just the two of us.

Instead of making puppets, paper bag puppets, we made toilet paper roll characters:

Stars of the performance we'll be putting on next week.

You can download the template for the toilet paper roll puppets here:
http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mwolf.html

My only suggestion: if you're not a talented artist, practice a bit before drawing the wolf on your own vocab chart.  Mine was mistaken for a chihuahua more than once.