Camilla and Roman: Riaba The Hen

Folktales!

Each and any of them are always engaging - they make you start thinking about your life. Folktales are special - they are created from the hundreds of years of our grandparents' wisdom.

We are sharing some of that wisdom with you today! This made my task of singling out

THE ONE - most special one - from the millions of folktales existing

almost impossible. "One day Wisdom, Food, and Wealth started on a journey," - this is the beginning of a Nigerian Folktale.

Oh, well, I didn't choose that one for this post. Because I wanted to talk

about happiness -

the most exciting subject for everybody.

What does happiness mean to you? (I mean it as a question: please, leave your comments bellow!) Can meeting the basic needs (simple food and shelter) be the only requirement for happiness? Does one need some wealth to feel happy? How difficult is it to find happiness? How easy is it to loose happiness one day?

Is it as easy as breaking an egg?

Here is the happiness in simple terms. The Russian folktale that is always the first tale Russian toddlers listen to.

The Little Speckled Hen

Once upon a time there lived an old man and his wife. Nothing did they have but each other and a hen called Riaba.
One day Riaba the Hen laid an egg. It was not a white egg. That egg was a golden egg.
The old man and the old lady were very happy. The old lady put her golden egg into a bowl for storage.
Then she got very curious. What could possibly be inside the golden egg? She knocked the egg on the table... it didn't break. The old lady called her husband for help.
The old man tried to hammer the egg. It didn't crack!
Suddenly, a tiny mouse ran by and waved its tail. The tail pushed the egg. The egg fell down and broke!

The old man was crying.
The old lady was crying.
Riaba the Hen was cackling,
-Don't you cry, Old Man! Don't you cry, Old Lady! I will lay you a new egg - not a golden one, but a white one.

Our play with Ryaba the Hen

We played a lot! It is a simple story with only 4 characters: very easy to retell, reenact, and make up your own stories out of it. We gave golden eggs to kids along with the hammers - they couldn't break them.

When the story went along, I secretly exchanged the gold egg to the regular one. It fell to the floor and broke!

Everybody got speechless indeed!

Camilla made mice from play-dough. The ears are made by simply pinching the pieces out with two fingers. She enjoyed taking the eyes, whiskers, and a tail (made from chenille stems) in and out; running her mice around with "Peeps" and pushing eggs with the long tails. That got her occupied for 3 days, LOL.

We reviewed the parts of a chicken with a Do-a-Dot printable. It can be downloaded for free from here: Rooster

Finally, we assembled the lovely bookmarks together. The story is all about happiness, and so are the bookmarks. So I thought a little glitter serves the purpose - and got carried away with the glitter glue when finishing decorating our chickens.