For over two thousand years, children and adults have learned and shared Aesop’s fables in the hopes of teaching basic morals and creating a better society.
What morals do these ancient fables teach and why do they continue to be important? To answer this, simply look at some of the ideas that are taught by reading Aesop’s Fables:
- Like attracts like.
- Slow but steady wins the race.
- Look before you leap.
- Pride goes before destruction.
- Happy is the person who learns from the misfortune of others.
- A person is known by the company s/he keeps.
- Self-help is the best help.
- Fair weather friends are not worth much.
- Do not attempt too much at once.
If you are looking for Aesop lesson plans for your classroom or home schooled children, look no further. There are numerous lesson plans and activities online.
To begin, you will find Aesop’s Fables online in html format at eLook.org.
For a biography, visit The Life of Aesop at Fairy Tales Collection.
Schoolteachers and librarians will want to read Interpreting Aesop's Fables to Teach Values by Barbara Hailey to learn how and why to modernize old stories to avoid the controversy of religion in public schools.
Two Travelers and the Bear, a lesson plan for grades 3 to 5, teaches children to recognize cause and effect relationships.
The Ant and the Dove is a basic lesson for students who speak English as a second language. It encourages students to not only understand the moral in The Ant and the Dove, but also asks students to compare this Aesop’s fable to a story or fable from their country of origin.
WebQuest’s Aesop's Fables '2001 gets students to learn more about Aesop and has students relate the moral taught in these fables to modern times.
Get children writing with Writing an Original Fable and have them write their own, original fable.
Education World has an interesting letter writing lesson plan for grades 3-8 in which students pretend to be a character from one of Aesop’s Fables to practice letter writing skills.
Reading A-Z has a downloadable version of Aesop’s Fables and shows educators how to use the stories for building language arts skills.
Looking for more activity ideas? Visit Aesop’s Fables Activities to read a list of ideas you can use in your classroom.
Finally, Arts Edge has a fabulous lesson plan, Masks and Aesop's Fables, that has students make masks of the characters in Aesop’s Fables. For grades K to 4.
