One of our recent variations on language arts was to have fun with retelling a story. Here are some of the variations that the kids came up with.
Dancing Butterfly's Story
The Ant and the Grasshopper
Retold as
The Selfish Moth.
Hi, I am a squirrel. One summer day I was collecting nuts in the forest, near a hut. It got late and I was about to leave when I saw a moth. She was trying to get at a lamp on the window sill. So I said to her, “What are you doing, Moth? You know you won’t get it.”
Then she hoarsely replied, “I am getting this flower, and I will get it. You are being silly, to ask me that.”
“Why are you determined to get that lamp? Why don’t you go and get at the flowers over there?” I said to her.
“No, they are the person’s vegetables and I don’t like them. Anyway I will not leave this flower no matter what you say. This one is bigger and prettier that the other flowers too. You are truly being silly about the matter.” the moth said rudely. “And what did you say about me getting at a lamp?”
Then I said to her, “You know there is glass between you and the lamp. There is no way around the glass. You see, it is inside a hut. And what do you need a lamp for?”
“I told you, this is a flower, not a lamp,” she screamed at me.
So I gave up the fight, and I left her because she would not listen to me, and ran home.
Then a cold storm came. And in an old pine tree with my nuts I had a happy time, all warm and out of the snow. But {for the moth} after the storm I was gathering nuts again and I went by the hut. And as I suspected at the window, lying on a ledge, was the poor, dead moth that I tried to save. She had had the most painful punishment. It was too hard to bear for the poor moth, and her lesson was:
Don’t try to get what you can’t, but get what you need to live in the days of need.
Einstein's Story
THE HUNTER AND HIS SON
One day a man went hunting to collect food for the winter. In the winter he and his family had plenty of food to eat. But when his son grew up he was silly and did not gather food for the winter. That winter seemed long. He and his family had no food. He knew he had been foolish and that he needed to:
Prepare for hard times.
Happy Feet's variation.
The Squirrel and the Rat.
A Rat sat on a log playing with his tail. He was very happy. A Squirrel came along with nuts in his cheek pockets. The Rat said “Come and play with me.” But the Squirrel said “I have to store up as many nuts as I can for winter.” “Why bother about winter, we have plenty of food present.” said the Rat. But the Squirrel went on.
When winter came the Rat was dying of hunger, because he didn’t have much food. He saw the squirrels distributing nuts and seeds from the stores they had collected in the summer.
Then the Rat knew: "It is best to prepare for the days of need."
| 
