Fables for Preschoolers: The Crow & The Pitcher

Of all the fables for preschoolers, The Crow & the Pitcher is one of my favorites.

The question is asked “What does it mean to be smart?” This crow was very smart when he was thirsty and needed water. It was a big job for him to fill the pitcher with pebbles but it was worth while because soon the water rose a little higher and he was able to reach it with his beak and take a drink. Sometimes things seem impossible but if we take time to think and then act, we can do something smart.

After listening to the story on CD, we talked about it. Sometimes the story goes really fast and I want to make sure everyone understands what the story was about. I ask questions like, “What was the crow’s problem?”  “What did the crow do?”Then I read the story again and as a group we listened for the /p/ sound. Each time we heard it, we really emphasized the /p/ sound and one child put a pebble into the pitcher. They really enjoyed participating in the story this way!

 

We used the provided pebble manipulatives to count out sets of 3. This was a small group activity that was appropriate for the three participating.

 

One of the best activities for The Crow & The Pitcher, was this Water Level Experiment.

 

What do you think will happen if you drop a rock into a bowl of water? We took turns dropping pebbles into the pitcher. We watched the water rise up as we put more pebbles into the pitcher. We used a ruler to measure how much the later went up after we noticed it starting to rise. I felt for our purposes, putting a strip of masking tape around the pitcher worked well to mark the original water level and to see how much it was rising as we added the pebbles. We made the water rise all the way to the top!

 

Our craft is actually a musical instrument – a crow shaker. We filled a cardboard tube with dried peas and decorated it to look like a crow.

They turned out so fun and everyone enjoyed shaking the during our “Crow Dance”.

A simple related sensory table activity: water, pitchers and pebbles.

 

When did you feel smart today?