The pea under the mattress writes a memoir of his attempt to help the prince find a “real princess.” Eventually the gardener’s girl who raised the pea lies on the twenty mattresses and he whispers, “You are very uncomfortable,” in her ear all night. She repeats this to the queen in the morning and marries the prince. The pea lives on in the royal museum.

Mini Grey, Alfred A. Knopf ©2003 ISBN 0-375-82626-2 (trade) and 0-375-92626-7 (library)

Fairy Tale Recipe Book

The pea is brought to the palace for a special recipe of Pea and Raspberry Jelly.  Why not use this as an opportunity to create a Fairy Tale cookbook?

First collect about six recipes from different cookbooks with different formats. Make copies for each group of 4 students and ask them to identify the critical elements of a recipe. They should come up with: title, ingredients list with the measurements needed, the temperature of the oven, step by step instructions, length of cooking at what temperature, preparing the pan (grease, lined, etc.), how many it serves, and so on.

Students can then brainstorm appropriate recipes for different fairy tales: Gingerbread Boy’s Gingerbread – Run Away Good, Goldilocks “Just Right” Porridge, Snow White’s Candied Applies, Cinderella’s “Fits Right” Pumpkin Pie, and so on.

You could create a class book of recipes where each page has: a picture of the cover of a sample fairy tale book, a 10 line summary of the story, and the recipe with its new Fairy Tale title. Suggestions for occasions to serve it would be great. Putting the finished bound book in the library can be great.

My Artefact

The pea becomes an “artefact” in the royal museum. The word comes from the Latin meaning “arte” (by hand) and “fact” (an object). An artefact is any human-made object which illustrates something about a culture. It is studied by archeologists and often displayed in museums. In fantasy games, an artefact is an object from a long lost culture that has magic powers. Your class constructs a “museum” of of artefacts from their year—posters of favourite songs, favourite commercials, favourite activities, school events, favourite foods, etc. Alternatively, a class museum can be constructed as each student brings an artefact that has associations for him/her and displays it with a poster explaining its “archeological meaning” from their life.

For 5 writing ideas, click Princess and the Pea to download.