A small clever animal beats a big strong one. As a class, let's name some stories like that. They might come from books, cartoons, or something someone told you at home.
Listen for the answers (the story is told out loud, not read from the board):
Today's full telling: Anansi the spider and Tiger.
After the telling: Which other clever-animal story do you know? Same pattern: a small animal wins with a plan (for example an Irish fox that tricks a wolf or a farmer, Reynard the Fox, or Brer Rabbit).
Anansi's stories have real homes. Let's go find them on the map.
We will explore the map of Africa together. Watch which countries we open and which languages you notice.
Anansi tales are often linked with West Africa. Try Ghana and Nigeria. Which places might Anansi stories have come from?
Open your copy. Write the name of the clever animal in the story you know best, and where you first heard it.
The animals in these tales wear different names in different languages. Look at each pair on the board and decide: true cousins that share a word family, or lookalikes that only seem related?
Keep today's tale animals in mind: the spider, the tiger and the fox.
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