Description

Aesop Fables -The Jay and the Peacocks – Guided Reading Script or Play – Readers Theater (Cast of 6, around 10 minutes reading time)

plus lesson plan including teaching input, synopsis, guided reading script, discussion points and suggestions for further work.

Lesson: Around 20 – 30 minutes

Aesop Fables -The Jay and the Peacocks. The script can be used either as a guided reading script (6 readers) or as a mini-performance (cast of 6) and could be used either in a Literacy or PSHE class (owing to the life lessons contained within the text).

Sample Text:

Jay:                        Your idea of fashion might be a bit different from us birds. But it’s all done for the same effect!

Peacock:              And effective it is, right? I mean, do we look good or do we look good?

Narrator:             Oh dear! Nothing like blowing your own trumpet! Some might think you were just a bit too showy!

Jay:                        Well, they sure impressed me! I couldn’t take my eyes off them. It was really hard to drag myself away, back to my dull nest and dull family.

Teacher:              Ooh! That’s not a very nice thing to say!

Jay:                        I know. But I was so dazzled by all that colour that I had seen, I could think of nothing else. All I wanted was to be like those peacocks.

Pupil 1:                 Crazy!

Pupil 2:                 Absurd!

Teacher:              You two think so? Now let me just remind you what your little argument was about!

Pupil 1:                 Argument?

Pupil 2:                 Well, it wasn’t exactly an argument. He (pointing to Pupil 1) just didn’t like me calling him a sheep!

Jay:                        A sheep?

Peacock:              Why on earth would he call you a sheep?

Jay:                        You don’t look anything like a sheep!

Peacock:              Even us, with the bird brains, can see that!

Teacher:              Perhaps I should explain to you, birds, about our rich language – where we compare ourselves to animals. Not always in the most flattering light!

Pupil 1:                 Nobody likes to be called a sheep!

Jay:                        Because they’re white?

Peacock:              Not very colourful?

Pupil 2:                 No. Because they are herd animals and just do as everyone else does.

Jay:                        You mean, they just follow the crowd?

Pupil 2:                 Exactly.

Peacock:              Huh! You call us bird-brains! That’s even worse!

Aesop Fables currently available from www.oldsite.plays-r-ussell.com:

·         The Fox and the Stork

·         The Lion and the Mouse

·         The Tortoise and the Hare

·         The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs

·         The Jay and the Peacocks

These all come in the same format i.e. as 6 speaker script with lesson plan including teaching input, synopsis, discussion points and suggestions for further work