“Ricitos de oro y los tres osos” en el jardín de infancia / “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” in Kindergarten

In connection to their immense interest in storybooks, Cris’ and Katherine’s kindergarteners have been listening to various popular childhood fables during Spanish class. To start, we focused on the English fairy tale of  “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” We read a few books on the same story but retold by different authors and compared the differences in each version.

First, we read Scholastic’s adaptation, “Ricitos de Oro y los tres osos / Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” by Maria Espluga. Then, we read other English and Spanish versions written and/or illustrated by Candice Ramson, Marta Mata, and Kate Clynes. 

The last one we read was the hilarious edition with a lively bilingual twist by Susan Middleton Elya titled, “Rubia and the Three Osos.” In this fresh take of the story, Elya’s narrative includes Spanish words into the English which helped the students use context to determine its meaning.

After the readings, we participated in different fun activities such as worksheets and movement to help us learn the repetitive vocabulary in the story; grande (big), mediano (medium), pequeño (small), dura (hard), suave (soft), caliente (hot), frío (cold), and perfecto (just right, perfect). A favorite game that was enjoyed by all was that of Simón dice… (Simon says…) where the students followed Simón’s request to demonstrate grande by standing tall, mediano by bending slightly at the knees o pequeño by squatting. ¡Divertido! The children had so much fun! So much so that it was requested over and over again.

To culminate the study, the kindergarteners were invited to sculpt a character from the story, Ricitos or one of the three bears. Using white Model Magic®, each student crafted their favorite and then gave it some color using markers. Our next piece will be for each student to write her or his own version of Ricitos de oro y los tres osos. After comparing and contrasting the various adaptions introduced, each kindergarten will get the chance to give the story their very own twist. The narrative will be in English but the repetitive words that we practiced in Spanish will be included in their tale. Stay tuned!