The North Wind and the Sun

Our cycle for the Fables block has been this: story presentation on Monday and Wednesday, writing and illustrating it Tuesday and Friday.

Wednesday's fable was The North Wind and the Sun, also from BORROWED FEATHERS AND OTHER FABLES illustrated by Freire Wright and Michael Foreman, edited by Bryna Stevens

After I told the story, of course, we acted it out. For this one, I divided the class up into two sections. I have 13 students so one was the traveler and the remaining 12 were divided into the Wind (6 students) and the Sun (6 students). I had the Wind children stand on a blue rug and the Sun children stand on a red rug. I gave the traveler a cloak as his/her prop. First, the Wind begins to boast to the Sun. Then the Wind blows and blows but the traveler merely wraps his cloak around him more tightly. Then the Sun takes his turn (and I had the children hold their arms out to be the Sun's gentle warm rays) and the traveler first loosens and then finally takes off his cloak. The moral of the story being "Kindness works better than force." This was the first time I had done this particular fable but it worked very well. The children took turns playing the different positions.

My sister-in-law sewed beautiful cloaks for all my girls, so we simply used one of the ones I had at home, but if you are looking for a cape for storytelling or play, I recommend Fairy Cove Silks. Meag's work is stunning!!!