One of our big standards to teach during this unit is comparing/contrasting similar stories. There are so many great versions of the classic fairy tales to choose from! One of my favorite fairy tales to use for comparing and contrasting is The Three Little Pigs.
We learned that in fairy tales, things usually happen in "threes", and of course the 3 Little Pigs is no different! I had the idea for my students to create Compare/Contrast Story Houses to create one big book. I absolutely love how they turned out and my kids had a blast creating them!
First, I created a little graphic organizer and my students filled one out for each story.
My students loved the fact that I included a "villain" square on our graphic organizer since there was a different villain in each version we read! We glued the graphic organizer to a piece of construction paper to create the first book page, then flipped it over and added the front cover to the opposite side.
To complete the first page, we added a roof by cutting a piece of 4.5x6" construction paper into a triangle shape and gluing it to the top of the page. This is where we wrote the title and author for each story we read!
We repeated the same process for each book we read and matched the book page colors to each "pig house" from the original story: yellow for straw, brown for sticks, and red for bricks! Each time we finished a new story page, I attached it to their book.
By the time we were done, we had 3 pages to complete our compare and contrast story house! I stapled the rest together to create an accordion book.
Creating the story house book was such a great, creative way to compare and contrast the different stories. My students absolutely loved making them as well! They really added so many details to their illustrations and were able to practice writing story summaries in the plot section.
There are many different versions of The Three Little Pigs to choose from, but here are the versions we read to create our compare/contrast story houses: The Three Little Pigs by James Marshall, The Three Little Javelinas by Susan Lowell and Jim Harris, and The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas.
To end our unit, we read one of my all-time favorite versions: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. It's the story of The 3 Little Pigs from the Wolf's point of view!
The most unique version we read was The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. The houses and settings were completely different from the original, and it had a happy ending too! Because the settings were so unique (and there were 4 of them!) I had my students split themselves up into groups of 4 and use giant whiteboards to create four window notes. Each student was responsible for drawing a picture of the four different houses the wolves built in the story. Then they took turns retelling the story to their fellow group members. Such an easy and engaging activity!
If you're interested in using the Three Little Pigs Compare/Contrast Story House with your fairy tale and folktale unit, you can grab it here in my TPT store by clicking the picture below! Differentiated graphic organizers, the cover page, and directions for making the book are all included in the pack. The great news is, you can create it using as many or as few versions of The Three Little Pigs as you want! It's such a versatile activity. Click below to check it out!
