4 The Ugly Duckling Life Lesson Plans and Craft Ideas

We celebrated Easter in first grade last week. And I had so much planned I didn’t even get to finish it all!!

We chose two Easter fables to study this week. We started with reading and listening for The Ugly Duckling life lesson. We reread the book each day and did a different activity each day.  Here’s a look at the lesson plans and craft ideas we did for The Ugly Duckling.

Elements of a Fable Anchor Chart

The first day we talked about and charted the elements of fables. 

Then, we read The Ugly Duckling and talked about whether it was a fable or not. And we talked about what The Ugly Duckling life lesson from the fable. (Treat others the way you want to be treated.) We also charted the life lesson on our life lesson unit chart which we will update throughout the unit. And admist all of the moving crazies I didn’t remember to take a picture of the chart we started. I’ll update next week!

Story Sequencing With Pictures

The next day, we watched a short video of our fable and sequenced the plot of the story in groups. 

Retelling the Story and The Ugly Duckling Life Lesson

Then, during our writing time, we wrote about the plot of our story using our fable graphic organizer. I love this organizer. It’s great for whole group guided writing and it’s great for guided reading groups to do as a small group or even as homework. 

On day 3, we reread the story and made connections to The Ugly Duckling life lesson by sharing about times when we were mistreated by others or a time when someone else was mistreated and we were a good friend to them.  

And, man! This quickly turned to counseling session 101 with my sweet firsties. I heard all of the sad stories and they loved sharing. In a quick 5 minute share time I heard about being ignored at recess, sisters lying to little brothers and a secret diary being stolen on the bus and almost being read! Deep stuff here, folks! It was really a great conversation…and more importantly, really help them internalize the story. 

The Ugly Duckling Craftivity

After our counseling session was over, we wrote about our connections with the help of our narrative graphic organizer {which I’ll blog about later}. Then, we made our super adorable, Easter themed duckling crafts!

I loved this fable and can’t wait to do The Tortoise and the Hare next week. I wish I could’ve squeezed them both in before Easter, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I love this mini-fable packet for Easter cuteness that’s still substantial learning and Common Core based. Cutesy activities with no real learning goals? Ain’t nobody got time for that!!

Hope you had a wonderful Easter.  Welcome, Spring and all of the fun and colorful learning that comes with it!