the sick lion

The posts are going to be coming a bit fast and furious for the two weeks during which we read and work with Trickster Tales, as we read one tale per day, then recall, draw and label the story the following day, which means four new stories a week. (Don't worry, things will slow down a lot with the Sage Story work, and even more so with the math work.)


Our first Trickster Tale was that of "The Sick Lion", in which an aging lion tricks animals in his kingdom to come to him, claiming to be sickly and unable to hunt. Of course, as soon as the animals set foot in the door of his cave, he pounces upon them and eats them. Except for the clever fox, of course, who happens to notice all the footprints going in, but none coming out. Above is J's story drawing (of the fox outside of the lion's cave) and label, below is Zoo Boy's.


While I told the story, Zoo Boy nearly keeled over with all the killing that was going on, even though it was all in a very light-hearted, matter-of-fact manner. When the story ended on a clever/funny note, though, he laughed, and he had no problem relating that the animals were eaten during the recall this morning. J, on the other hand, was howling with laughter for the entire story. Certainly shows different developmental stages and personalities!

Both boys were very into the recall, quoting their favorite lines verbatim, and arguing about who got to tell the next segment. Both also avidly drew the stories (although Zoo Boy made me promise that they could do a free drawing tomorrow rather than a led-drawing -- I'm planning on switching back and forth between methods this year), but Zoo Boy burst into tears when I explained we were going to write a short sentence or statement to describe the story. We compromised, and he wrote the title on his drawing (although he refused to write on the lines provided for that purpose). I'm certain he'll come around on this, this is his usual resistance to new things, I've seen it time and again from him. The fact that he actually was able to continue with the lesson and didn't need to leave the table to recover shows his ability to better handle these sorts of things.

Below is my drawing, for comparison. I won't draw every day, just when I want to lead a drawing. (My purpose in leading today was twofold -- first, it was our first story drawing after a break, and I wanted to set the right tone, and second, I wanted to show labeling by example so they could see what I meant.)


Did anyone else notice that both of my kids drew foxes that actually look like foxes? While mine looks more like, I dunno, a Collie.... And, by the way, all these foxes are actually orange. Obviously that's not a color my camera interprets well....