Field Trips & FunCamps
Parent and Teacher Resources
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Before You Visit
Fairytale Town is a place where imagination can make anything happen - and where learning can be especially fun. Below are some ideas to integrate your trip to Fairytale Town into your daily curriculum. Our hope is that you will use this list as a springboard to develop your own ideas about how to incorporate Fairytale Town into your own classroom activities. We look forward to seeing you and your students!
Jack and Jill – Physical Activity
Fun rhyme for learning somersaults, which 3-5 year olds like to do. Sing the song a few times while children take turns somersaulting in pairs (or side rolling across a space), with the first person leading and the second person "coming tumbling after."
Jack and the Beanstalk – Gardening
Use the story as an introduction for growing beans. Scarlet runner beans grow quickly and to great heights, with flowers that attract butterflies and leaves that provide "magical" space inside if trained on a stick or bamboo teepee.
Three Little Pigs – Puppetry/Art/Storytelling
Makes a great puppet show. Use a bag or sock puppets as an art project, three simple sets of scenery, and great action within the story plot itself.
Crooked Mile – Social/Physical
Play "follow the leader" along a crooked path throughout the room while singing the nursery rhyme. Could even designate children to play the characters within the song, identified with simple costume props. The destination is the house, the ending part of the song. Children can take turns as the leader, setting the actions for the rest to follow as they walk the crooked path again.
Mary Had A Little Lamb – Art Project/Discussion
Use cut-outs and cotton balls to represent Mary and her lamb. Sing the song, then create the images, and while working on them, children can talk about the themes in the rhyme: friendship, loyalty, companionship. Questions such as "tell me about your best friends," "what do you like to do together?" can lead to good conversations.
The Little Engine That Could – Storytime/Reading
Children never tire of this story, especially if it's presented dramatically. A good art activity would be to create a train out of construction paper. Children can also create a long train with completed homework assignments mounted in each "boxcar" of the train to illustrate accomplishment of their goals.
Hickory Dickory Dock – Circle Time Finger Play
Classic "circle time" finger play, with hands acting out the mice's antics. Sing, pause to emphasize what the mouse said, scurry the fingers to illustrate the mouse's actions.
Old Woman In The Shoe – Problem Solving
With older preschool children, have them solve the old woman's problem: what could she have done with so many children? Incorporate the answers in retelling the rhyme, then implement some ideas in the daily activities of the class in the days leading up to the field trip.
Tortoise and the Hare – Theater
Act out the fable a few times, with children taking turns as the sleeping hare and the steady tortoise. Discuss the morals of the fable – encourage the viewpoint that everyone has a strength, and it is the person who knows their own abilities who can succeed. Explore everyone's talents, and how each person can "complete the course" with his or her special skills.
Humpty Dumpty – Art/Puzzle Piecing
On lightweight cardboard, the class could produce a guided drawing representing the rhyme after hearing it and singing it together. The teacher could then cut the drawing into puzzle-shaped pieces and the group could cooperatively piece them together again. (Aren't they more capable than "all the King's horses and all the King's men?)
Cinderella – Participative/Guided Storytelling
Longer and more complicated story ideally suited to flannel-board storytelling, with the children engaged in flannel-figure placement and removal, adding voices, answering questions to supply what happens next. The story would change at each telling, the length suited to age and attention span. Many cultures have "Cinderella" stories; we encourage your to explore them all.
Jack Be Nimble – Social/Physical/Literacy
Children can leapfrog over one another or jump over a line on the floor while the class sings the rhyme, replacing the name "Jack" with each child's name as he or she makes their jump. It's a great way to get everyone focused after recess.
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