Classic, preschool-friendly fairytales offer fun opportunities to learn vocabulary, sequencing, life lessons, and more. The “Three” themed fairytales below contain opportunities for your child to join in on telling the story with you, once your child can recall the repetitive line(s) or other parts of the storyline.
- The Three Bears
- The Three Billy Goats Gruff
- The Three Little Pigs
For example, the Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear in The Three Bears all make similar statements: Someone has been eating my porridge…Someone has been sitting in my chair…Someone has been sleeping in my bed.
Take the opportunity to use different voices to act out the fairytales. Reference the pictures as necessary. If your child can share the storyline without the pictures, they are recalling and sequencing the story events! Sequencing is essential for learning to read.
Other favorite fairytales:
- The Gingerbread Boy
- Chicken Little
- Little Red Riding Hood
Once your child becomes familiar with fairytales 3 through 6 and the nursery rhyme Wee Willie Winkie, read Mr. Wolf’s Pancakes by Jan Fearnley together.
In Mr. Wolf’s Pancakes, the wolf, usually big and bad, is sweet in this story but still hungry and needs help to make pancakes. He asks his neighbors (Little Red Riding Hood, Chicken Little, etc.) for support, but they refuse. Mr. Wolf’s Pancakes allows you to review familiar fairytales, reinforce vocabulary, and discuss themes such as manners.
When children read books by the same author or a series with the same underlying subject, they are more likely to carry these themes into pretend play.
Stephanie Sigal is a speech therapist in Manhattan. She works with children in their homes on the Upper East Side. You can contact her at sayandplay@yahoo.com.