First of all it's a simple familiar story that is easy for them to retell. It encourages interaction with the text with the repetitive "whose been eating my food?" line and the voices are just fun for the kids to make. The beginning, middle, and end is pretty simple too.
Then there is the whole measurement piece of comparing the bears' sizes. Over and over again we are reminded of the size difference, which fits right into our kindergarten measurement unit on lining up objects by size. So we are comparing sizes of bears, bowls, beds, chairs, and then bears again. We are measuring with non-standard units so we are using manipulatives to measure stuffed bears and predicting whether momma bear will have more or less blocks than papa bear. Some of my little ones have iep goals to recognize the big object when given two choices- Goldilocks is like the original teacher of big/little.
Rhyming is a bit of a stretch but it can be done- bears/chairs. A couple of 3 bears versions I found are written in rhyme so I can throw that in too.
Then there is the emotional component. There are the happy walking bears, sad baby bear, angry papa bear, and scared Goldilocks. It's perfect for basic identification of emotions that some of my kids need.
-Hmmm Papa Bear's eyes are squinted and his mouth his open. Ever seen Ms Lipstick look like that? Yeah, that is what people look like when they are angry.
Now that we've identified the emotional component our next step is going to be to write an anger-management book for Papa Bear. Although yes, Papa Bear may want to be angry enough at Goldilocks to eat her, well, let's see what else he can do. Take deep breaths? Take a break? Ask Goldi to never do that again? Get a drink of water?
And then there is the 'don't take things that don't belong to you' lesson. Why is Papa Bear mad? People get mad when we take their things. Let's practice asking first- if Goldi had just asked then maybe they'd all be friends.
I'm sure as the unit goes on I'll find more areas where we can milk it for all it's worth. We're making a mural that includes a retelling component, interactive writing, ordering objects from longest to shortest or shortest to longest, and of course just enjoying being artistic.
I have a feeling I'm going to be very, very sick of Goldilocks when this is all over.