3rd Grade · Reading · RL.3.1

Fables Lesson Plan for 3rd Grade

A ready-to-teach fables lesson for 3rd Grade, built around finding the lesson of a fable or folktale and the details that show it, following a trickster's plan and spotting exaggeration in a tall tale. Print the plan, print the practice pages, and you are set.

Approximately 47 minutes

Learning objective

Read "Bramble and Twig and the Big Wind" and identify the central problem and characters
Analyze how the characters' choices in the story about Two forest gnomes, cautious Twig and skeptical Bramble, clash over whether to believe Twig's warning that a big windstorm is coming that very night lead to the outcome
Identify the fable's moral and explain the lesson it teaches

Materials

The Squirrels of Chestnut Hollow
The Overflowing Basket
Bramble and Twig and the Big Wind
The Nest by the Trail
The Six Neighbors and the Strange Machine
The Three Cousins and the Pencils
Pencils, and whiteboard space for the modeled examples

Lesson steps

1. Build the background (5 min)
Connect fables to a book the class already finished. Prior knowledge is doing most of the work in comprehension, so spend the time here.
2. Read aloud and think aloud (I do) (10 min)
Read a short passage aloud and stop twice to narrate your own thinking about fables. Students are learning the move, not the answer.
3. Guided practice (we do) (12 min)
Read a second passage together. This time students find the evidence and you record it. Push every answer back to the text with "what words told you that?"
4. Independent practice (you do) (15 min)
Hand out "The Squirrels of Chestnut Hollow". Students read and answer on their own. Circulate and ask individuals to point to the line in the text that supports their answer.
5. Share and close (5 min)
Two or three students share an answer and the evidence behind it. Restate fables one final time in the students' own words, not yours.

Check for understanding

Ask each student to point to the evidence in the text for one of their answers. A student who has the right answer but cannot find the line has not yet learned fables.

Differentiation

Extra support. Students who stall: pull them into a small group and rebuild fables with concrete materials or a simpler text before asking for the written work again. Do not send the page home as homework, it will just rehearse the misunderstanding.

Extension. Students who finish early: ask them to write their own fables problem for a partner to solve, then check the partner's work. Creating a problem is harder than solving one and it surfaces whether they really understand fables.

Skills covered in this lesson

Bramble and Twig and the Big Wind · The Seed Keeper of Dustwell · The Squirrels of Chestnut Hollow · The Potter's Midnight Helpers · The River Race · The Three Cousins and the Pencils · The Overflowing Basket · The Six Neighbors and the Strange Machine · The Hungry Badger and the Kind Crow · The Shiny Compass · The Nest by the Trail · The Raccoon and the Peacock's Pie

Questions teachers ask about teaching fables

What is the difference between a fable, a folktale and a myth?

A fable is a short story, often about animals, that teaches how to act. A folktale is a story people pass along by telling it aloud. A myth explains something in nature with a powerful being, like a giant who made the mountains. All three end with a lesson children can find (RL.3.2).

Are these well known fables?

No. Every fable, folktale and myth on these sheets is an original ClassWeekly story, so children meet new characters and have to work out the lesson for themselves.

How do I help my child find the lesson?

Ask three questions in order: What did the character want? What did they do? What happened because of it? The lesson usually lives in the last answer. Then have your child find one sentence in the story that shows it.

Is there an answer key for each worksheet?

Yes. All 31 sheets have an answer key, with sample answers for the lesson and the details that support it.