Fantastic fables

Aesop's Fables are pithy tales that all end with a proverb or moral. "All that glitters is not gold" and "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" are two well-known morals. Find an edition of Aesop's Fables and read several to your child. Discuss how the animals are given human traits and how their actions are used to illustrate a moral. Review the moral or proverb with your child and encourage her to explain what it means in her own words. This is more complicated than it sounds. Explaining what "all that glitters is not gold" means stretches your child's thought processes.
 
Once your child has an understanding of the fable format and proverbs, challenge her to write and illustrate her own fable, using a moral that you suggest. For starters, try "A stitch in time saves nine" or "The early bird catches the worm." If she enjoys being her own fabulist, she may want to write and illustrate several fables and put them together in a book.

Reading resources

Aesop's Fables illustrated by Michael Hague (Henry Holt, 1999)

Fables by Arnold Lobel (HarperCollins, 1980)