Grimm’s Fairy Tale: Sleeping Beauty

The second fairy tale we covered was Grimm’s Fairy Tale: Sleeping Beauty.  As I read the original out loud to the girls I reflected how simple the tales were, with very little detail to them at all.  I wondered how the Grimm brothers would have reacted to their short fairy tales being made into over 100 minutes of animation to become some of the most well-loved films available on film today.

Grimm’s Fairy Tale: Sleeping Beauty Resources

I read the original Grimm’s Fairy Tale: Sleeping Beauty using this book, which we already owned:

A8 read some picture books we have of many of the fairy tales we were covering.  She did this during her quiet time:

B5 still has a nap in the middle of the day, so for this time I played a new CD I had bought for the occasion:

Grimm’s Fairy Tale: Sleeping Beauty Literature

Once again I used this fairy tale unit study applying it this time to Sleeping Beauty.  We focused on looking at characteristics of each of the characters, especially that of Rosamond (Sleeping Beauty).  Because writing takes so very long, I like to concentrate on that separately, so the girls narrated to me the answers and I wrote them down.  They illustrated.

I also used some of the original text for A and B to copy out and illustrate.

Sleeping Beauty STEM

Last weeks main activities were a Cinderella reader’s theater and building a castle for Cinderella and the prince to live in.  This week we focused on engineering, using this STEM activity I found for free called Sleeping Beauty and Enchanted Engineering.  The premise of this activity was to build a bridge for the prince to cross the river so that he could reach Sleeping Beauty and awake the kingdom.  We had to build it from 50 index cards and twelve inches of masking tape.  The girls were also allowed to use a pen, scissors and a ruler.

The bridge had to be at least 6 inches high and 8 inches across.  Thomas helped the girls to design their own bridge which they drew and then built:

The girls tested it to see how many pennies it would hold, which I believe was twelve:

The next day they chatted and shared ideas how to improve upon the design to make it stronger, thus able to hold more pennies:

They decided to use some of the tape to attach the folded cards together, strengthening each layer.  It worked a treat as they were able to balance double the pennies (and probably more):

Sleeping Beauty Spa Night

One highly anticipated activity was the Sleeping Beauty Spa night the older girls had planned for the little ones.

We had gathered manicure and pedicure bits and pieces we already owned from around the house, bought some face masks, filled our foot spa with warm water and some baths salts left over from the Jane Austin tea party:

Grimm’s Fairy Tales: Sleeping Beauty Readers’ Theater

I wasn’t going to do a readers’ theater this week because I was trying to have some variety from the week before.  However, B5 had other ideas, begging to repeat the fun we had with the Cinderella play.  I chatted to Charlotte, who offered to attempt a rewrite of the readers’ theater I had already downloaded (it had about ten parts, for which we did not have the readers).  I have included parts of the script so you will know what was going on in the photos.

Once upon a time a beautiful princess was born.  The queen, her mother, declared a party for the whole kingdom to celebrate her birth

Everyone agreed and the happy queen gave a huge feast. She invited all the good fairies in the land.

The fairies gave gifts of beauty, kindness and gifts of all good things

As she stepped forward to give the gift, the good fairy was thrown back as a wicked fairy flew in, music heralding her appearance (lots of tuneless ‘music’ from surrounding thespians).

“You didn’t invite me, so I shall also give a gift to this child. When she is 15 she will prick her finger on a spindle and die!”

“I cannot break the spell, but I can make it better. The princess will not die. She will sleep for 100 years.”

The Queen fainted

Coming round, she called the soldiers to her.  “Go and burn all the spindles in the land!”  The soldier saluted (whilst at the same time almost shooting himself in the head with his toy crossbow)

Fifteen years passed in peace. The princess grew beautiful, strong and true. Then her fifteenth birthday came around. The princess was searching for someone to hang out with as she had no friends her age and soon became lost in the cavernous castle. She entered the tallest tower and saw an old lady sitting, spinning.

Alas, the poor clueless girl had picked up a spindle. As she was holding it she pricked her finger on the knife sharp edge.  So fate has come around and now the precious princess’ feeble flame has flickered out.  As the evil fairy flew away the princess crumpled to the floor, a sleep settling over her.

As the princess’ head hit the floor her family and the entire castle fell into asleep.

One hundred years passed and still the princess slept. Thorns slowly grew into a wall, concealing the castle from sight. Many tried to find the castle and its beautiful princess but all fell victim to the bushes’ harsh swords. That is until, exactly 100 years later, a prince happened upon the castle. The thorns, instead of killing him, parted to give him a path.

“Why this is strange. What kind of place is this?”

The prince searched the castle and found all asleep. The king, the queen. The gentry, the servants, even the rats in the dungeon. Finally he stumbled across a beautiful girl.

“Her beauty compares to none that I have ever seen.”

The Prince hugs the girl, because kissing (his sister on the lips) was not quite right 🙂  )

“Thank you,” cooed the young princess.

“The pleasure is all mine. Your beauty enraptured me and I knew I had to save you.”

Then (with a very loud snort which made all the other thespians jump out of their skin!) the queen awoke, whilst the rest of the courtiers sat crumpled in giggles.

“I am a prince. Prince Harry” (more giggles.  Private joke – everyone says Thomas looks a bit like Prince Harry!)

“Dear princess, I am afraid your beauty has quite ensnared me. I will not be able to love another”

“Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

“Yes”

And then the prince and princess married and moved into the castle. There they planned to live for many years.  Unfortunately they forgot to invite ‘someone’ to their wedding………

And they all took a bow and lived happily and giggly ever after <3

That brought a close to our look into the world of Sleeping Beauty.
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Language Arts