The Lion and the Mouse

Aesop’s fables are well-known and well-loved stories that have been told since antiquity. Fables are explicitly educational but they hide their messages safely within the skins of animals who take rather silly, distinctively human actions. Using The lion and the mouse, a story about help where you least expect it, Michelle Holland introduces kindergarten children to simple narrative structure: beginning—middle—end. The children collaboratively worked out their own ideas about animals who might help each other, and created new stories based on the framework of The lion and the mouse. They did their own drawings and got help from the teacher to write their stories in English and from the Educational Assistant to write their stories in Tagalog. They added a beautiful cover page to each beginning—middle—end PowerPoint story depiction for title and credits.