Have You Read "The Paper Bag Princess"?

Tomorrow I have the sincere joy of being the Mystery Reader in my daughter's 1st grade classroom and I am going to read The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. A twist on traditional princess themed stories, The Paper Bag Princess is all about Princess Elizabeth who rescues Prince Ronald from a fire-breathing dragon. Some might call this a modern princess tale because the ending is not very fairly-tale like at all. But, it is very funny!

For most of the story, Princess Elizabeth wears a paper bag because the dragon burned everything else, hence she is a paper bag princess. She also discovers character traits about herself and the prince through her journey to save him while wearing only a paper bag. I don't want to totally give away the ending, so I will say no more.

Tomorrow we will create a paper bag princess or, if the boys want, a paper bag prince using (you guessed it) a lunch bag sized paper bag, and a template of Princess Elizabeth's head and arms. I found several websites containing directions for doing this craft. The links are below.

If you go the the official Robert Munsch site you can hear the story read aloud and see the other books that he has written. The site is very colorful, kid friendly, and ideal for the interactive white board.

Paper bag princess puppet
Another paper bag princess puppet
Family Literacy Guided Lesson (PDF)
Word Search
Play Production Guide (useful info and an activity sheet)
Author study on eThemes