Who doesn’t love fairy tales? Don’t answer that, because if you don’t like them it will sadden my heart…) Currently, I am teaching my students how to write good fairy tales. Throughout this process, I realized it has been way TOO long since I wrote my own story.
I decided to teach my students through modeling (a very good technique I hear^^). I wrote my own fairy tale. I wanted to give my students a breakthrough into their thinking, fairy tales do not have to always be about princesses and dragons. Here is my story (remember, it is written with a 2nd grade audience in mind):
The Little Green Button
Once upon a time there was a sad and lonely little green button. But you see, he had not always been sad and lonely…
This button used to be sewn onto the world’s ugliest coat. A poor farmer girl owned this dirty, brown coat. She didn’t mind owning the ugliest coat in the world though, because it was hers (and she used to have no coat at all). Even when the tails started to fray, and her arms grew too long for the sleeves, even then… She wore her coat.
She wore her coat when she milked the cows. The little green button loved it when she milked the cows. She wore her coat when she fed the chickens (the little green button was not a fan of chickens). She wore her coat to bed in the winter when it was so cold that even all four of her sweaters could not keep her warm (the little green button loved these nights the best because she would tell him a bedtime story). She used her coat as a picnic blanket in the spring. She used it as a towel after she went swimming in the lake in the summer. Her coat was always with her.
Then one day, when the little girl was milking the cows, her one little green button (the rest of the buttons were brown) POPPED off the coat. He fell to the ground and laid there, even after the little girl picked up the milk bucket and walked away.
The little green button cried and cried. He never knew what it felt like to be alone. He laid on the floor of the barn for weeks and weeks, lost amongst the hay. Then, one day, the little girl’s mother was walking by the barn… she heard the little green button crying!
“Oh!” The mother exclaimed as she picked up the little green button. “I am so glad I found you. A kind neighbor gave me a new coat to give my little girl and she will not wear it, because it does not have her little green button.”
The mother ran to the house and gave the little green button a new home. Soon he was sewn onto a beautiful purple coat, in between shiny black buttons. When the little girl came in from feeding the chickens she saw her little green button and cried.
“I missed you friend!”
And they all lived happily ever after.
Hehe, I just love silly stories… don’t you?
