The week of St. Patrick's Day is a wonderful time to read Irish folktales. Students in our class heard Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato, retold and illustrated by Tomie dePaola, and Tim O'Toole and the Wee Folk, retold and illustrated by Gerald McDermott. There are many parts of these stories that are the same - both men are lazy and poor, both of them catch a leprechaun, both of them are given magical things by the leprechauns, and both tales have happy endings where the main characters have everything they need. There are also several differences in the stories - Jamie finds one leprechaun, whereas Tim finds a whole troop of the Wee Folk. Jamie is given just one thing by the leprechaun, and Tim is given three things. Jamie's neighbors help him out, whereas Tim's neighbors just come to his home for free food! At the end of the week, after listening to these tales several times, students identified these similarities and differences, while Mrs. Doiron recorded their ideas on a Venn Diagram. (You may remember Venn Diagrams from Math class.) The children demonstrated their comprehension of the stories by the answers they gave. These are wonderful tales which you may want to find at the book store or library. After reading the story about the big potato several times, students were given baked potatoes with their lunch on Friday, March 18th. Butter, sour cream, salt, and pepper were served with the potatoes (only if the children wanted them). It's been a fun week - our students got to eat special foods with their lunches twice. Pasta on Tuesday and potatoes on Friday. Books really do taste good, too !!
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