Fables Galore!

As part of the second grade curriculum, students in my classroom participate in a unit where they study the elements of fables. Once students understand the elements of a fable, they look at examples of fables and assess each one based on the elements as well as establishing what the lesson, theme, or moral is portrayed in that text. As a culminating activity, students create their own fable with a lesson, theme, or moral of their choice. In an effort to provide students with additional examples of fables, I created a digital story of a fable about a Leopard and Monkey centered around the theme of "you must work for all you get."

Next year when teaching this unit, I plan to include this digital story to show my students an additional example of a fable but also to show a way in which they can create and publish their own fables. This fable was created using Storybird which is a tool that I am still new to. In a previous post I shared my experience with using it for the first time. After more exploration with this tool and allowing my students some time to explore, I must say that I can better see the positives and abilities of this program. While there are still limitations to Storybird, I must say that the pros outweigh the cons and I plan to use this website more often with my students.




Please note that this just a rough draft of my digital story. If you have any ideas for changes or improvements to the story and/or ways in which this can be integrated into the curriculum, please comment and share them below.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update:

I have since used this fable in my classroom to introduce Storybird to my students and I have found that the students LOVED that I wrote this story and that they can become authors themselves using this online tool. Some other ways in which I believe educators can use Storybird in their classroom are:

- Educators can create assignments and grade using the program
- Educators can create a library on Storybird which students can access and see everyone's stories
- Teach a lesson on details by having students describe the images provided in the galleries
- Teach a lesson on expanding sentences using the details of the images.
- Use it for prewriting or organizing
- Teachers can use it to work on emergent reading skills with young readers
- Have students collaborate to create a story as a group
- Have students free write using the images to create a story

There are so many ways in which educators can use Storybird in their classrooms! How would you use Storybird with your students?