The unit involved reading a lot of different fairy tales and different versions of the same fairy tales. Students also used many Tools4Students graphic organizers to respond to the books. All the work was done in pairs as we are working a lot of collaboration skills and explaining our thinking. As students completed the graphic organizers each partner had a different job--that of typist or that of questioner. The typist filled in the organizer and the questioner prompted the typist the give reasons for what they were typing.
Students read all the fairy tales, except 2 fractured fairy tales, on iPads.
There were 2 culminating projects for the unit. First, students created a map (to tie in with our social studies unit) of Fairytale Land. They had to place at least 6 fairy tale characters that we had read about on the map and be able to defend where they were placing the characters. Their map also needed to include at least 5 landforms. The landforms provided a natural way for students to separate certain characters (such as the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood). This dovetailed with the discussions we had in social studies about landforms and how they influence where/how people live and interact. Maps were created on paper because I felt that the size of the iPad screen would limit students' ability to fit everything in as they tend to write and draw large with their fingers or stylus. Students did present their maps to the class with time for Q and A.
The other culminating project was taking a fairy tale and re-writing it in a modern setting. These were really fun for me to read. Students wrote on paper. I think if we had more time we would have used Toontastic because I love that app. I just didn't have time at this point for students to learn how to use the app and be comfortable enough with it to get their fairy tale complete. Maybe this is something for next year. However, they did create their main character using Toca Fairy Tale.
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