Summary: Princess and the Pea
A young price finally decides he's ready to marry and starts to look for a princess. One night while he was away from the castle a princess from another land shows up on his door on a rainy night. His parents decide to make sure if she is a real princess by putting a dried pea under a lot of mattress's, and the next morning they find out she is the perfect princess for their son and they got married.

Personal Reaction:
I love this story. I heard it many times as a child! I always wished that I could possibly feel a pea under my mattress so that maybe I could be a princess. I think it is a sweet story that many children would like to hear.

Classroom Extension Ideas:
1). I would bring in dried peas into my class to do an activity with the children and try to see if any of them could feel a pea under a layer of something that could represent the mattress.
2). I would also have the children each make and decorate their own crown that way all of them could be princes and princess's for the day.

Second story read: The Gingerbread Man
Summary:
A woman decides to make gingerbread and with what's left over she makes a gingerbread man. Soon after placing him in the oven he becomes alive and yells to be let out. He runs away from all these different people and animals only to run into a smart and patient fox, who ends up eating him.

Personal Reaction:
This too was a story I heard many times as a child and loved so much. I like how it repeats itself, keeps the reader/listener anticipating when it will pop up again! and I really like the ending, finally the gingerbread man didn't get away this time!

Classroom Extension Ideas:
1) I would have the children do an activity and draw their own gingerbread man. They could decorate him anyway they would like.
2) If possible I would also have a baking day where the class actually got to make their own real gingerbread men or women for the girls. We could have all kinds of candy decorations for them to individually create and then eat their own. ( )