top of page

Lesson plan: The Princess and the Wizard by J. Donaldson & L. Monks



A story about a smart and empowered princess, who saves herself from a wicked wizard.


Age group: primary school

Trinity College London level: GESE 1 and GESE 2

Vocabulary:

  • days of the week

  • animals

  • colours

Activities:

  • sequencing

  • guessing

  • counting

Before reading

  1. introduce characters: princess, wizard, fairy Godmother

  2. practise vocabulary: review colours, review/introduce animals (fish, chick, grasshopper, fox, butterfly, cat and gull)

  3. review days of the week by asking questions such as: what day is today? what days is the weekend? what day you have your English lesson?

Read/Tell the story

Make your telling as interactive as possible using repetitions contained in the story. For example, you can make your students count to 100 every time the wizard "opens his book, closes his eyes and starts to count". You can also ask your students to guess what will the next animal the princess will turn herself into, what colour will it be?

After reading

  • check students understanding of the story: who are the protagonists? What happens on the princess' birthday?

  • check what students remember: how many times can the princess try to escape? what does she do to escape?

Follow up activities and table time

Ask students to divide their page in 3 columns:

  1. days of the week

  2. animals

  3. colours

Sequence the story and fill the table accordingly. It should look like this:


DAYS OF THE WEEK

ANIMALS

COLOURS

Monday

fish

blue

Tuesday

chick

yellow

Wednesday

grasshopper

green

Thursday

fox

orange

Friday

butterfly

purple

Saturday

cat

black

Sunday

gull

white

Use the sequencing activity backwards to recall how the princess goes back to her family.

Evaluate

Ask students to evaluate the story. You can ask questions like: what's your favourite character? what's your favourite moment of the story?


Try it out and let us know how it goes! Follow us on Instagram @chatterbox_speakers.hub and Facebook

Comments


bottom of page