Project 63: Fairy tales and folklore

This week's project was a closer look at some fairy tales and folklore, exploring some of the elements of the fairy tale genre and how the stories have been told and re-told over the years. As such this week involved many more films than we'd usually watch (albeit usually accompanied by a version of the book).

As well as watching the films Shrek, Cinderella, and the Snow Queen, we also watched CBeebies presents The Snow Queen, and Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel:

Although we had expected to just introduce the Hansel and Gretel opera, thinking they'd quickly get bored of it, they actually loved it and happily watched the full two hours.

We got them to do more creative activities around the story of Little Red Riding Hood. They created their own collage of Little Red Riding Hood in the woods:

Little Red Riding Hood Collage

And after comparing three versions of Little Red Riding Hood, they had to write their own version.

Different versions of Little Red Riding Hood

The Alison Jay version is a horrible over-sanitised version of the story - with no one eaten and the wolf sent for re-education at the end - unsurprisingly Solomon and Monica went for the more traditional gobbling-up approach. In fact Solomon's had more than usual!

Solly’s Little Red Riding Hood

Once upon a time there lived a girl called Little Red Riding Hood who ran off into the woods to visit her grandmother. As she was walking along she saw something hiding in the trees, so she went to see what it was. But as she was walking towards it, it turned out to be a wolf that jumped out at her and gobbled her up. Then a woodcutter came and chopped the wolf up and out jumped Little Red Riding Hood, who continued walking to her grandmother’s house. 

When she got there Grandmother turned out to be a wolf who gobbled Little Red Riding Hood up, but then her father came and pulled the wolf’s head off. Out jumped Little Red Riding Hood who walked home with her father. 

On the way home another wolf jumped out and ate them both up.

The end. 

Monica’s Little Red Riding Hood

Once upon a time there lived a little girl who was called Little Red Riding Hood, and she went into the forest to visit her grandmother. She picked some flowers for her grandmother, and then a wolf jumped out and gobbled her up. But a woodcutter came and chopped up the wolf, and Little Red Riding Hood realised that it was her father and she hugged him. And then she carried on walking to her grandmother’s and she was overjoyed to see her grandmother. Then she went home and hugged her mother as well.

The end. 

Next week's project: Buildings and architecture.