Why Fairy Tales and Tall Tales are Important:

This domain will introduce students to classic fairy tales and tall tales and the well-known lessons they teach. This domain will also lay the foundation for understanding stories in future grades. The first half of the Fairy Tales and Tall Tales domain focuses on fairy tales. These fairy tales will remind students of the elements of fiction they have heard about in previous grades and will be a good reintroduction to the practice of listening and learning. Students who have used the Core Knowledge Language Arts program in Kindergarten and Grade 1 will be familiar with some fairy tales and the elements of the fairy tale genre from the Kings and Queens domain (Kindergarten) and from the Fairy Tales domain (Grade 1). In this domain, students will be reminded of these elements and hear the fairy tales “The Fisherman and His Wife,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” and “Beauty and the Beast.” Students will be able to relate to the problems faced by characters in each of these memorable tales, as well as learn from the lessons in each story.

The second half of the domain focuses on tall tales and the elements of that genre. Students will be introduced to the tall tales “Paul Bunyan,” “Pecos Bill,” “John Henry,” and “Casey Jones.” Learning about tall tales will introduce students to the setting of the American frontier and some of the occupations settlers had there. For students who used the Core Knowledge Language Arts program in Grade 1, it will reinforce what they have already learned about the American frontier in the Frontier Explorers domain (Grade 1) and prepare them for the Westward Expansion domain, because many of the tall tale characters head west on their adventures. The tall tales in this domain will also introduce students to the literary concept of exaggeration.