[SusanTeach]

We're going to start these this week, and I'm looking for creative ideas for my 4th graders. I've never attempted them before, but there seem to be a lot of cute books to go along with it. Ideas?

[istoleahalo]

I didn't do much but my 4th graders really enjoyed Ella Enchanted (this was before the movie came out..I have former students -boys even- who went to see it and said how disapointed they were with how far off the book it was). I had them write their own fractured fairy tail, or from a diffrent character's point of view. We even put a few villans (the big bad wolf and the wicked witch of the west) on trial with me being the judge, another class being the jury, 1 student to be the villan, others to be the attornies and witnesses for both sides. It was really cute.

[Nina306]

You could gather a bunch of silly versions of one story, say Three Little Pigs, or Cinderella, and do some comparing and contrasting. I did a reader's theater last year doing fairy tales, so you could do that, and they could write the scripts. They could read the fractured fairy tales, then write their own.

[Brooke S.]

I study various genre with my students each year and then we do 3 little mini-plays. You could do a play for each version of Cinderella or the 3 Little Pigs. It would be cute. I even let my kids write their own script, decide on their costumes at home, help with the scenery. It is a lot of fun!

[Teach4]

I have had students act out their own versions of traditional tales. I put a bunch of story titles in a hat. Each group pulls a story and comes up with their own script. A good way to get the creativity going is with a box of costumes/props. Fill it with things that could be used to act out the various stories - hats, aprons, baskets, artificial flowers and fruit, pig noses, wolf ears, etc. Show all costumes/props to the whole class and tell each group to think about what would make their story come to life. Each group has access to all props/costumes when they present their tale. I've only done this with older kids but I think it could be done in 4th grade. You would just need more time given for script writing and rehearsal.