Introduction

Favola means fairy tale in Italian, and this activity creates a multilingual fairy tale in which famous characters explore their surroundings and meet. The focus of the activity is to develop oral comprehension skills using movement and having fun while doing so.

Target group and Time

This activity is suitable for a wide target group. According to the difficulty of the story, the target group could be from grade 3 to grade 6. This activity doesn't require a high level of ability, but students should have a good command of English in order to be able to understand the whole story. The length of the story can vary, but should take about 10 minutes. 

Learning objectives

Oral comprehension, direction vocabulary, following and performing actions.

Instructions to set up the activity

Create the story or use a short story already invented. Create the symbols that represent the characters. For my story I drew 4 symbols:

• Little Red Riding Hood: a girl dressed in red clothes and a wolf or a red hooded cape and a basket
• Peter Pan: a green hat with a leaf
• The Three Little Pigs: three pig noses
• Sleeping Beauty: a sleeping girl

Since the job of the students is to act out what the characters do, showing the signs during the story-telling helps the students to understand which character to act out.

Find setting references in the space where the activity takes place. For example, if the story takes place outside, spot a particular tree or a bush to include in the story.

Letting it run

This activity is pretty easy to explain: the teacher reads or tells a story and the students have to act out the actions of the characters while the story is narrated.

The story can be invented or can already exists. The teacher can modify it along the way, according to students' reactions and capability. Here is my story.

Cappuccetto Rosso's Afternoon Adventure

Once upon a time, there was a little girl (show Little Red Riding Hood sign) who was walking through a wood and picking flowers from the ground because she was going to her grandma's house to bring her marmalade and cookies. But this girl, whose name was Cappuccetto Rosso, was the pretty distracted type and couldn't remember the right way. She looked left, she looked right. She looked down, she looked up at the sky. Oh, what was over there? A weird and funny creature was flying there (show Peter Pan sign). It was Peter Pan, a little boy who reeeeallly enjoyed flying up, and down, and up, and down. 

Cappuccetto Rosso asked him: Hey, hey you! Can you help me? Which way should I go to get to my grandma? 

Peter Pan replied: Just go past that big tree and turn left, and you will find your way.

So Cappuccetto Rosso (show Little Red Riding Hood sign) went to the big tree, and turned left.

There she saw Tre Porcellini (show The Three Little Pigs sign) building three tiny houses. Tock, tock tock. “Hey, hey!” She called. Where should I go to get to my grandma??

And the Tre Porcellini replied: Just jump three times forward, twirl (show what a twirl is), go right after that tree and you will find your way.

So she did three jumps, a twirl, and went right after the tree. But wait! She almost stepped on something! Or someone? There was a beautiful girl lying there, she was the Bella Addormentata. (show Sleeping Beauty sign). So Cappuccetto Rosso called out to her and asked: Hey, hey, hey! Can you show me the way?

But Bella Addormentata was sleeping so deeply and peacefully, that she didn’t wake up. So Cappuccetto Rosso (show Little Red Riding Hood sign) decided to lie down beside her, enjoy the beautiful sky and postpone the trip to her grandma's house until tomorrow.