Third Grade marked the birthday of Wilhelm Grimm by performing an original Skit on the Spot. In this modern-day version of Cinderella, (one of the hundreds of stories collected and transcribed by the Grimm brothers), Cinderella’s sisters and stepmother keep her busy by fetching lattes and doing their nails, while the Prince desperately tries to locate the owner of the missing shoe by email.
Students also learned about the history of the Grimm brothers, Jakob and Wilhelm who were by training and interest, linguists who studied language change (Wilhelm was also a professor and librarian!) and even compiled a German dictionary. The Grimm brothers embarked on a huge folkloric endeavor, collecting hundreds of folk and fairy tales by interviewing people in their homes during the beginning of the 19th century, and transcribing the tales. Later the tales were published and many are still widely read today including versions of Snow White, Cinderella, The Frog Prince, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty.
We also noted how oral tales are distinct from written ones in that each person tells a story a little differently. This creates many different variants of a single tale. Students also came up with their own endings for our skit, and shared them.
We concluded with book browsing and checkout. Happy Reading!
We concluded our .
