Jr. Great Books with G-Bear

This spring, I feel so fortunate to be able to lead a Junior Great Books group for G-Bear's class. Her classmates are enthusiastic readers, eager to participate and 25 minutes together flies by each week.  Each week, we read a story and then have some discussion time as well as a brief activity.  We've read the Red Balloon and talked about friendship, How the Elephant Became and created a skit with the kids as animals and myself as the narrator, The Velveteen Rabbit and did a word find together, Cinderella and made a Mad Lib re-telling, The Emperors New Clothes and did a crossword puzzle, and The Terrible Leak and created pictures of an imaginary monster.

My favorite activity that I did with these eager second graders was the Cinderella Mad Lib.  It was great to "re-tell" the story, just as many have done before us (this was a great way for me to point out the popular Disney retellings of the original Charles Perrault classic).  Plus, the students have been learning basic parts of speech this year in school, and a Mad Lib was an ideal academic exercise (albeit so cleverly disguised and fun).  I made up the Mad Lib myself, and I am posting it here so that it might someday be helpful to others.  I am certainly hoping to reuse it myself!

Mad Lib

Cinderella by Charles Perrault

Once there was a gentleman who married, for his second wife, a woman who was very ______________.  He also had a young daughter who was very ______________, like her mother before her.

No sooner had the couple married than the stepmother showed her true colors.  She made the young girl ______________ and __________________, while her own two daughters were given expensive ______________  and lovely ______________.

Each day, when the young girl finished her ____________, she would crawl into the __________, which is why her stepsisters gave her the name _____________ _____________.

It happened that the ______________ of the kingdom gave a _______________ and invited all the notable ______________.  The stepsisters were delighted and spent all day getting ready.  After they left, the poor girl was ____________ when suddenly her Fairy __________________ appeared.  Using a magic __________, the Fairy made a coach out of a ________________, footmen out of _____________, and the most ____________ gown ever seen, but warned the girl to be home by ________ o’clock.

Once at the ball, the girl spent all night ______________ with the Prince.  When the clock struck ____________, she remembered the fairy’s warning and immediately fled, leaving behind one of her _________    __________ (s).  Later, the Prince was able to use it to find her because it fit her ______________ perfectly.  She went to the _______________ to live with the Prince, but remained ________________ always.

1.  Negative adjective

2.  Positive adjective

3.  Horrible chore

4.  Horrible chore

5.  Noun

6.  Noun

7.  Plural noun

8.  Place

9.  Noun

10.  Name

11.  Person

12.  Event

13.  Plural noun

14.  Verb ending in –ing

15.  Person

16.  Noun

17.  Plural Noun

18.  Adjective

19.  Number

20.  Verb ending in –ing

21.  Number

22.  Adjective

23.  Noun

24.  Noun

25.  Place

26.  Adjective

Happily Ever,

Queen B