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Overview of Y2 Spring Term Part 1
AESOP’S FABLES

Truth to Teach (Source)

 A story-teller may choose to draw attention to a character lesson through telling a
fable which is a brief story with animal characters.

 ‘The Man who tried to please everybody’ fable

Way to Work (Means)

1. Review lessons on parables. Show books of Jesus’ parables, drawing attention to the
style of writing and illustrations. Because these stories are quite short in the Bible,
different story-tellers have enjoyed telling them in their particular way. Ask what
they would they not want to change. (The details; the central truth in the parable)

2. Talk about Jesus telling parables to teach people about how God wants us to live in
his kingdom. A good story often has a ‘nugget’/ ‘raisin’ of truth in it. A long time ago,
before people could read for themselves, story-tellers often used to remind people

what was a good way of behaving and what was not good. One such story-teller was
a man called Aesop.

3. Explain that we know little about this man. He lived in Greece about 600 years

before Jesus lived on the earth. He told short stories with animal characters (unlike
Jesus’ parables), and there was always a character lesson or a moral at the end of
each one. His stories are called fables.

4. Read some short fables, asking questions to ensure understanding, e.g.
• The main characters
• Sad or happy endings
• Consequences of wise and foolish decisions
• Suggest different endings

5. Share that Aesop did not write down his fables but he told many people the stories
and they remembered them. It was nearly 200 years later before all the stories
were collected together into a book. They were first available in English in the

1400’s, but since then they have been read by people all over the world.

6. Let the children try the worksheet after reading ‘The Man who tried to please
everybody’.

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