Made by Machteld van Velzen
Lesson 7: Fairytales and nature
You might not know yet, but Ireland has a very close relation with nature. The Irish has a long standing respect for nature as a living body, and this is reflected in their stories. Ireland is famous for their mythical stories. Think about fairies, gnomes, and of course Leprechauns!
For this lesson, we have some goals in place so you know what you will be doing, and what you will need to have achieved at the end of the lesson.
At the end of the lesson:
- You can explain why fairytales and nature is important to the Irish culture.
- You can create a short fairytale based on nature and mythical creatures.
- You can highlight the events happening in an Irish fairytale.
Planning of this lesson:
What do we remember?
Reading a fairytale
Discuss some reading strategies.
Read the story and answer questions.
Let’s look at some descriptive words
Let’s write a fairytale
Evaluation: what have we learned?
For this lesson, we have some goals in place so you know what you will be doing, and what you will need to have achieved at the end of the lesson.
At the end of the lesson:
- You can explain why fairytales and nature is important to the Irish culture.
- You can create a short fairytale based on nature and mythical creatures.
- You can highlight the events happening in an Irish fairytale.
Planning of this lesson:
What do we remember?
Reading a fairytale
Discuss some reading strategies.
Read the story and answer questions.
Let’s look at some descriptive words
Let’s write a fairytale
Evaluation: what have we learned?
🕰️ 5 min |
Prior knowledge
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What do you remember from the last lesson. Fill them into the Mentimeter below!
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Input
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Before we read the story, let’s check out some handy-dandy strategies.
Before you start to read: - Look at the title and pictures. What do you think the topic of the text will be? - this will help to predict and expect certain words you might need when reading. - What do you already know about this topic? Are there any things, people, or other thinks you think of instantly? While reading: - What would you do if you find a difficult word in the text? - Search the definition of the word or a synonym, and write it down near that word, or in a wordlist. This way you don’t have to search for the same word every time. - To the following text, a glossary is available to use for the difficult words. Use this as a dictionary to practise using this too. Answering questions about the text: - Before you start reading the text, read the questions first and highlight important words! This way, you know what you are searching for in the text. - While reading the text, highlight where you have found the answer of the question and write the question number next to it. Now, you can easily check if you have answered the question right. |
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🕰️ 5 min |
Pre-activity |
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So, first, discuss with your peers:
- What do you think the story is about?
- And what do you already know about the topic?
- Look at the glossary, what words will you encounter? Do you know these words already?
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🕰️ 20 min |
Meaning
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🕰️ 5 min |
Post activity
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Well done thus far! Now, discuss with someone around you:
- What did you think of the fairytale?
- Why do you think such a story is told in Ireland?
- Why do you think fairytales such as this one is important to the Irish culture?
- What is so prominent in this story, especially when you look at the setting of the story?
- How does nature play a part in this story?
As you have noticed, nature is a big part of the Irish culture. How other countries try to control nature, uses it as decoration, and only want the pretty side of nature, Ireland does the complete opposite. In Ireland, they live with nature instead of forcing nature. They let plants grow as they want to without cutting it down, they use the materials the land provides to build new things. If you ever go on a tour around Ireland, the tour guide always asks the travellers to not touch any of the flowers in their path. Even if you like the flower, by picking the flower, you are interrupting the flow of nature and impacting nature as a result. Nature is a living being not to be forced or killed for convenience. That is also why nature is important to the Irish and to Irish storytelling, it is a being on its own which provides life and creates and shelters wonderful other beings, magical in its own way.
🕰️ 15 min |
Form
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Look at the following descriptive words in the text:
What do the bold words refer to?
- “As she plucked on her harp strings an old Irish air,”
- “and spread her black cloak and they both disappeared.”
- ”To endlessly play for the Banshee’s wild dance.”
- ““Oh you’re good, very good!” said Owen quite brightly.”
- ““Well come then.” said Hugh, “Let’s go very quietly!””
- “And flew around the cave with her harp joyously.”
What do the bold words refer to?
- Ask questions as:
- What object is …?
- Who or what person or object is doing it …?
If you look at the questions you have now asked and answered, the first question refers to nouns, or objects which you can place “the” in front of. We call these kind of descriptive words; Adjectives. The second question asks for an action and how someone did something. The words in bold end in ‘-ly’. This shows that the word says something about an action, whole sentence, or another adverb. We call these kind of words; Adverbs. |
Let’s practise
🕰️ 10 min |
Output
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Write a short fairytale yourself.
Make sure it is at least 50-70 words, have at least 2 magical, mythical creatures, and make sure you have fun! Out of ideas? Look at the picture, and write based on the picture. Or use the following prompt: ”A princess meets a hungry dragon. How does she convince the dragon to let her go?” Done? Send it to your teacher via Teams |