1. Activity- Correctly Define Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, and Fables
Drag each box below and match up the definition and example with the correct story type.
Story Type
Definition
Example
Folk Tale
A very brief story in prose or in verse that teaches a moral or a practical lesson about how to succeed in life.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Fable
A type of imaginative writing that takes the reader into an invented world where the laws of nature are not as we know them.
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Fairy Tale
A story with no known author. These stories are passed down from one generation to another by word of mouth.
The Tortoise and the Hare

2. Bold or underline the words and phrases in the paragraphs below.
Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, and Fables
Bold or underline the words and phrases in the paragraphs below.
Fables are short stories where the characters are all animals who can talk and act just like humans. They can also include mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or natural forces that also have humanlike qualities and actions. Fables have very strong messages or morals to help the reader in life, such as ‘Slow and steady wins the race’ or ‘Don’t tell lies or nobody will trust you again.’ These stories have been around for thousands of years and can be found in ancient carvings from all many different countries around the world.
A folktale is a story that shows the customs, beliefs, and lives of the people from where the story started. Although many folktales contain details about the land they come and are about that culture, most folktales tell the same kinds of stories. The characters are mostly human and the storylines do not usually include magic. Folktales come from countries all over the world.
Fairy tales are similar to folk tales in that they come from all around the world. A big difference, though, is that they have also been written down and published for hundreds of years. Charles Perrault in France published ‘Cinderella’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ as early as The Grimm Brothers in Germany published their own versions of 'Rapunzel', 'Hansel and Gretel', and 'Rumplestiltskin‘ in Fairy tales also include characters that can perform magic or live in magical worlds different to our own.

3. Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, and Fables
Compare what you know about fairy tales, folk tales and fables in the Venn Diagram below.
Consider: Characters, Settings, Plots, Aim, Country of origin