Storytelling-Ricitos de oro y los 3 osos

I have been trying to incorporate more books and storytelling into my lessons. I started Ricitos de oro y los tres osos with my first graders this week and they were totally hooked. We didn't get to finish and every class pouted and then gave me hugs on the way out the door. One little boy exclaimed, "¡Que pena, Ms. K! We didn't get to finish the story!"

To start I am telling them the story using the props from my new favorite website Kizclub.com. This site has storytelling props for a ton of different books and classic stories. They also have crafts, flashcards, and clip art for a variety of topics.  In addition to Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, I've also made sets for 5 Little Monkeys, Mouse Paint, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Brown Bear Brown Bear. I've been printing the black & white versions (because our color printer at school is dicey) and then copying them onto card stock. I color and laminate them. Then I use magnets to stick them to my whiteboard.

These kiddos have learned emotions before but last year I taught them in isolation. As a consequence most of them still need to look at the poster to answer the question ¿Cómo estás? I decided we needed some additional practice. A story will hopefully help make this vocabulary stickier. Right now we are also doing Me gusta/No me gusta. Ricitos de oro is a perfect story as it's easy to rewrite so that they get several repetitions of the target vocabulary.

I started by telling the story using the props. I repeat each sentence several times and use circling to have students practice the structures. When we get to the parts where Ricitos de oro is speaking, the students act it out with me.  At this point, I usually am more flexible about my raise your hand for permission to speak rule and let them shout out their predictions and their Spanish as I go along.

Ricitos de oro y los tres osos Target Vocabulary:

Hay ____. 

Tengo hambre.

Tengo sed. (In my version Ricitos de oro drinks hot chocolate rather than sits in a chair.)

Estoy cansada. 

Me gusta _____. (la avena, el chocolate, la cama)

No me gusta ______.

Estoy enojado/a. (For papa & mama oso)
Estoy triste. (For bebe oso)






In the next class after we finished the story, we read it together on story strips. The kids thought it would be really hard at first but they surprised me and themselves by doing it (with only a little help from me.) At the end I told them to go home and tell their families they had read a WHOLE story in Spanish. Finally, we acted the story out using cute masks I had made. We had our four main characters but we also had students come up and be the bowls of porridge, cups of hot chocolate, and beds. They LOVED it and asked to do it again in the next class.  It has really helped them remember the different emotions. I get much better answers when I see them in the hallway than I ever did before.

Do you use stories in your classes? Which ones? How do you teach them? Share in the comments below!