Printable Scandinavian Children's Literature(Folklore & Fairy Tales) and Lessons

Sweden:

Selma Lagerlof, a Swedish writer wrote many wonderful Swedish fairy tales for children around the turn of the century. One of her books, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson, published in 1909 was likened to Hans Christian Anderson. A very popular book of "Scandinavian culture of which reflects many of the traditional values of Scandinavian culture, such us love for nature, tolerance and playful learning. As a geography reader for elementary schools, Nils Holgersson's adventures transmit information to the children through interest, imagination and humour. As Nils travels over Sweden, children became familiar with the nature, climate, geography and culture, learning at the same time the importance of friendship, tolerance, and the belief in a good world." ~ Scandinavica.com.

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson with illustrations and without(downloadable version).

Lesson plan for The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson.

Further Adventures of Nils

Shorter adapted selections from The Adventures of Nils from Children's Readers with discussion questions:

Jarro the Wild Duck, seventh grade.

The Story of Jarro, sixth grade.

Quotation lesson from The Essentials of English: Jarro the Duck

Hatto the Hermit, seventh grade.

The Elf from Evenings with Grandpa(not a reader), there is a bit of a discussion and built up before grandpa begins the story.

The Captive, fifth grade. We read this yesterday - very cute story about a squirrel.

The Winston Readers, four stories, third grade.

More from Selma Lagerlof:

Christ Legends (elementary - middle school)

The Outlaws(high school)

The Rat Charmer, followed by a Portrait of Selma Lagerlof. Fifth grade reader.

Glory Goldie's Fishing, fifth grade reader.

The City at the Bottom of the Sea, fifth grade reader.

Other Swedish stories:

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell: The Cap that Mother Made. Elementary school.

Norway:

By author Peter Asbjornsen:

The Queen at the Bottom of the Sea, Little Fred and His Fiddle and, The Cock and the Fox(elementary school)

Tales from the Fjeld

Winston Third Grade Reader: The Little Ram and the Pig and East of the Sun West of the Moon, pages 112 - 123.

The Elson Third Grade Readers: The Princess Who Never Laughed

Third grade reader: The Princess Whom Nobody Could Silence.Lesson plan.

The Easy Road to Reading(second grade): GoodBrand

Fourth Grade Reader: The Ram and His Friends

Finland:

Snowdrops, Finland idyls for children

Whisperings in the wood, Finland idyls for children

Finnish Legends for English Children by R. Eivind

Denmark:

Hans Andersen's Stories

Danish Fairy & Folk Tales

Iceland:

The Yellow Fairy Book: PRINCE RING, WITCH IN STONE BOAT, and HERMOD AND HADVOR More under Andrew Lang's Fairy Tale Index(below).

Icelandic Legends

The Children of Odin

Collections of Scandinavian tales:

A Selection from the Norse Tales for the Use of Children

Round the yule log, Norwegian folk and fairy tales

Riverside Third Grade reader: The Farmer and the Hill-Man

Andrew Lang's Fairy Tales Index: Europe

Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian

Popular Tales from the Norse

Viking Tales(elementary school)

All are free and in public domain. Printing Google Books: Follow the link, right click on the image of the page and print picture. It will print as a full sized page. Entire books are also downloadable.

What we(fourth grade) do with our printable stories:

- Underline all unfamiliar words
- Use dictionary to write definitions
- Write summary of story
- Proofread, correct and discuss
Easy and fun!

Fourth Grade Reading and Penmanship Lesson/Free Printables

Week III

Click and Print:

Where There Is a Will There Is a Way.

True Manliness.

Ship in a Storm.

Week III Vocabulary List

Selections from Revised Fourth Grade McGuffey's Reader(1920 edit.), free and in public domain. I'll post other weeks as we complete these lessons. We are also using these penmanship lessons this week: Free printables for Proverbs and George Washington's Rules of Civility.

Week II here.

Homeschool Printable Freebies: Christmas in Other Lands(Elementary School)

From Google Books(vintage books):

Christmas in Other Lands(western Europe), pages 406-410, Public School Methods, 1921. The Christmas section begins on page 402 if you are interested in looking at other lessons and songs. To print, simply right click on the image of the page, view page or save, and print. Printing is only possible in HTML mode; the link is preset to this. Settings can be changed at the bottom of most Google Books pages. This book is in public domain, readable online, and downloadable.

This story can be paired with paper dolls from around the world in order to see traditional dress. Many of them can be found here. Check Google - there are many free printables to choose from.

It's a very brief lesson which runs through many countries in snippets, but good for casual supplemental reading, and a quick geography lesson if you have the children look up the countries on the map. Better yet, have them label this map.

Free printable maps


We will be doing this on Monday.

Also see(left an illustrated printable page on Christmas in Sweden.

Found later:

Christmas in Other Lands Lesson, Good English, Oral and Written, Book 1(grade 4).

How Christmas is Kept in Other Lands, New Education Readers(grade3).

Christmas in Other Countries, New Era Second Reader(grade 2)

Christmas in Other Lands, Brooks's readers, Book 6(grade 6)

Numbered list for western European countries, a good jumping off point.  Here and here.

Christmas in Greenland, Fourth Grade Normal Reader.

Homeschool Freebie: Fish Migration

My son was required to write a short essay about fish migration for his Rod & Staff reading lesson today. Here are a few resources that I found for his assignment today. All are free to print, read online, and download.

The Natural History of Animals: Of Migration of Fishes Pages 124-125

The Origin of the Seasons Considered from a Geological Point of View: Migration of Fish in European Waters. pages 274-275.

St. Nicholas Magazine, Nature and Science for Young Folks, The Winner.pages 650-651.

The World Book: Salmon pages 5173-5174

How Salmon Live and Die, short paragraph.

Classics Old and New: Salmon by Rudyard Kipling
pages 53-56.

The New Century Third Reader (easy and quick summary): SalmonPages 47-50.

Story Hour Readings, Book 8 (advanced reading): The Story of Salmon by David Starr Jordon pages 13-21. Fifth grade version, fourth grade version.

Photo and blurb about a flying salmon.

Photo of flying salmon.