Jack and the Beanstalk

Our adventure took us to "once upon a time land" where we visited Jack and all of his friends and foe.

We read a couple of versions of Jack and the Beanstalk, even one where it was from the giant’s point of view.

Our favorite was the one by Stephen Kellogg, with a gruesome ogre instead of a giant.

It was fun to compare the different renditions of the same story.

In our sensory bin, we had beans galore in which to play- to measure, pour, collect and sort.  

We did an experiment by soaking beans for a day or two to see what might happen. They softened up enough for us to see the baby plant inside each bean.

We placed our soaked beans in a baggie with a moist paper towel, placed them in a sunny window and as if by magic, they began to grow! It was fun to look at them every day and watch the roots reach down and the stems and leaves reach up high towards the sun. When they're a bit taller, we'll place them in cups with soil to continue their growth.

We climbed the beanstalk

and then followed the giant’s footprints

to the castle where we played with a basket filled with gold coins and golden eggs. Fortunately, the giant was away at the time. Fee fi fo fum...

A couple pair of "giant shoes" were made available to add to the drama.

The gold coins provided us with a game of one to one correspondence.

We designed castles with watercolors

and clouds with cottonballs pulled apart (great for those little finger and hand muscles), dipped in glue and placed on cloud shapes.

As you can see, it's a lot harder than you think!

"Giant, giant, who took your golden egg?", was the game we played. One of us was the giant who fell asleep with the hen who laid a golden egg behind his(her) back. One of us snuck up and took the hen and the golden egg. The giant had to guess who took the egg.

It was fun to visit Jack and the giant.

We can't wait for our next fairytale adventure!