Catching Up...Fables - "The Dog and His Reflection"

Another fable we did in October as part of our Language Arts block using Aesop's Fables was "The Dog and His Reflection". I embellished the story a bit and brought in the character of a boy who was kind to a feral dog who lived in the woods near a lake. The boy brings the dog a bone (the acorn) and the dog happily takes the bone and heads through the forest to his den. On the way, he must pass by the lake and as he's crossing, he spots his reflection. He believes it to be another dog staring back at him with an even larger bone. In an envious rage, he drops his bone and jumps in after the dog, only to realize that it was just his own reflection. Not only is he soaking wet, but he has lost his precious bone in the water and now must go without.

The girls were sad for the dog (I hadn't anticipated that), but I think they *got* the moral of the story as a result of feeling sorry for him. In the 3 day rhythm, they retold the story using the props set up at the table. Charley changed the dog a bit. I am pleasantly surprised to see how much more willing they are to retell stories in this 2nd year. I am sure part of it is maturity and increased confidence as they get more and more used to story recall. But also, the fables are so much more forgiving than the fairytales, which almost always have longer, extensive plots with a lot more characters, twists and turns.

This year, I have enjoyed having the girls really help me form summaries of the stories to copy into their MLB's. Sometimes they are longer and in this case, I allowed the girls to shape most of the summary.

They also love to copy the blackboard drawings into their MLB's.

I will have to go back and photograph the remaining fables from this block. Next, we moved onto math for the month of Nov, so I will post the photos I took from that block. We have started school again and I am documenting and will have nicer summaries to share starting next week!

Stay warm!