Sep

8

Return to Fables…

Posted by Homeschool_Dad

September 8, 2008 |

Do you remember Aesop’s Fables?  You know, the Tortoise and the Hare.  The Grasshopper and the Ant.  The Fox and the Crow.  The Lion and the Mouse.  There are hundreds more.  I learned about them as a child.  I read the more shocking ones as a teen.  As an adult, I decided to write a comical play about them called “Aesop’s Hop.”  Needless to say, I think Aesop, the legendary slave/storyteller from Ancient Greece,was a very wise man.

But I am saddened and surprised at how many young people are not aware of these fables.  As I’ve said before, I teach college students.  And guess what — most of them cannot name a single Aesop Fable.  Sometimes they know the one about the “rabbit and the turtle.”  But for the most part, they are not aware of the wit and wisdom to be discovered in Aesop’s collection.

If you feel that the lessons within these fables are valuable, a highly suggest that you check out the online collection of Aesop’s fables.

Aside from reading and discussing ancient fables, it’s a great idea to have you and your kids write fables of your own.  To help my kids come up with ideas for fables, I usually give them a few items to help their story along:

  • An animal
  • An object
  • A location

From there, I let the kids work together or separately.  In about twenty minutes or so, they create a fun and meaningful story, complete with a moral at the end.

Here’s an example of what my students came up with:

The animal: A sparrow.

The object: A statue.

The location: a garden maze.

One day an old man who considered himself very wise journeyed into an enormous garden maze.  He wandered around for over an hour and although he was lost he told himself that he was too wise to lose his way.  Overhead, a sparrow called to him, “If you are lost my friend, I can help you find the way,” said the bird.  The old man was too proud to accept the bird’s help.  Instead, he kept searching until he came upon a large, powerful looking statue.  The statue pointed down a new path — which the man immediately followed, but it was a trick and he simply became more lost.  The sparrow called again, “Kind sir, if you like, I can show you the way, for as a bird I can see the maze from above.”

But the old man thought, “That bird is too small and puny, not grand and powerful like myself and the statue.  I will not listen.”  And the old man kept going down his path, and he remained lost in the maze forever.

Moral: Listen to those with a different point of view.

Rather cool, don’t you think.  If you and your kids come up with a fable of your own, click on “COMMENTS” and share it with the rest of us!


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