Fables

I grew up listening to fables and it was always great fun to try to beat my brothers in guessing the moral of the story!  The stories are short and easily hold a child's interest and because there is a moral to the story, they listen carefully to figure out just what that moral is.  I use reader's theater when we study fables and the students love it.  We start with the following four fables:
The Tortoise and the Hare
The Lion and the Mouse
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Town Mouse and Country Mouse

I use the following book for read-aloud fables:

Aesop's Fables for Children

Author:  Milo Winter

Illustrator:  Milo Winter

Publisher:  Dover Publishing

Copyright:  September 19, 2008

After we finish with fables, we turn other picture books into 

reader's theaters. One of our favorites is:

Caps for Sale

Author:  Esphyr Slobodkina

Publisher:  HarperCollins; Reissue edition 

Copyright:  September 24, 1987

This is a story of a peddler who sells caps, but he does 
no carry them in a case, but stacks them on top of his head.  
One day he gets very tired and sits under a tree, leans against 
the trunk and takes a nap.  When he awakes the caps are gone!  
I have a dozen caps and the children love this Reader's Theater!