The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Three Billy Goats Gruff is a great story for group storytelling whether with pictures or without. The range of voices and repetitive speech is perfect for VYL but also older kids. I have done this with 7-8 year olds who loved it nearly as much as the 4 year olds.

This version gets 5 stars on Amazon

Topic: Three goats want to cross a bridge but an angry, hungry troll wants to eat them.

Age: 4-8

Vocabulary: Goat, troll, bridge, big, middle/medium, small, angry, hungry (I like to add thirsty to the lesson) 'Who's that tippy tapping on my bridge?' 'I'm hungry and I'm going to eat you.' 'Please don't eat me!'

Procedure:

• Sing If You're Happy and You Know It to review/introduce the adjectives happy, angry, hungry and thirsty. Suggested lyrics: If you're happy happy happy, clap your hands. If you're hungry hungry hungry, eat a banana. If you're thristy thirsty thristy, drink some water. If you're angry angry angry, stamp you're feet. If you're happy happy happy, shhh be quiet!"
• Introduce the story using the front cover. Count the goats. Show how there was BIG goat, middle goat and small goat using gestures. Start the story. The goats are hungry and they want to eat the long green grass, BUT under the bridge there lives an angry, hungry troll who likes to eat goats.
• The small goat goes first. Get everyone to tap the noise of the goat's hooves on the floor/tables lightly. STOP roars the troll. "Who's that tippy tapping on my bridge?" I say this twice whilst clapping it encouraging the children to repeat with me. Now squeaky voice for the small goat. "It's me! Small goat." On later tellings I elicit the word small from the students. Big booming voice again and rub your tummy. "I'm hungry and I'm going to eat you!" Clap it out and repeat twice, whilst encouraging the children to say it with you. Back to small goat, who squeaks with hands praying. "Please don't eat me!" (Children must repeat this bit really well  or the troll is not satisfied ;). I finish the conversation"I'm only small. Wait for my brother, middle goat. He's much bigger than me!" "Ok go ahead" grumbles the troll.
• Repeat for middle goat. Big goat arrives and speaks with a BIG voice and on cue says! "Oh no you won't." Then with your hands gesture the horns and charge. SPLASH the troll falls into the water and is swept away. The goats are happy and eat lots of grass. The small goat becomes a BIG fat goat. If you have the Steven Carpenter version then go around and point out the the troll floating away down the river, because he's very small.

Extensions:

This makes a great worksheet for all VYL, although the four year olds will need help to complete it.

In follow up lessons I drew a bridge and photocopied it and the students added the characters for me.

Another great activity is a sorting activity with shells, buttons, bottle caps or other objects into the three categories or big, medium an small.

If a worksheet seems easier then make a photocopy with three boxes of different sizes and ask them to draw something big, small and medium sized in the right box.

I've watched a lot of 3 Billy Goats Gruff videos on Youtube and this was my favourite. The children won't understand much of the speech but the drawings and music are lovely. The students have all got very involved when watching this video.