The Selfish Giant
St Sylvester’s, Elgin, Scotland.
Comenius Project September 2010
Every day the children used to go and play in the giant’s garden.
It was a beautiful garden with flowers which danced and
sparkled through the tall green grass beneath the blossoms and
fruit trees.
One day the
giant returned.
“What are you
doing here?” he
shouted in a
very gruff
voice.
My garden is
my own garden
and nobody will
play in it but
me!”
The children
ran away and
the giant built a
high wall around
the garden with
a sign.
He was a very Selfish Giant!
Now the children had nowhere to play.
“How happy we were !” They sighed to one another as the wandered
around the high wall of the giant’s garden.
The Spring returned, and all over the country there were
little blossoms and little birds.
Only in the giant’s garden it was still winter…
Without the children’s laughter the trees forgot to
blossom and the trees stood silent with frost.
Only the snow, wind and hail were happy and decided
to stay in the garden all year round.
But the Spring never came, nor the Summer.
The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the
Giant's garden she gave none. 'He is too selfish,' she said.
One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely
music. It was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it
seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world.
Then he noticed that the north wind and hail were quiet and the
air was filled with a sweet perfume.
Then he saw the most
wonderful sight…
Through a little hole in the wall the
children had crept in, and they were
sitting in the branches of the trees.
And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had
covered themselves with blossoms, and the birds twittered happily.
Only in one corner it was still Winter. In it was a little boy. He
was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the
tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly.
The Giant's heart melted as he looked out. 'How selfish I have
been!' he said.
Now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little
boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my
garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever.
He crept downstairs and opened the front door quite
softly, and went out into the garden. But when the
children saw him they were so frightened that they
all ran away, and the garden became Winter again.
And the Giant stole up behind
him and took him gently in his
hand, and put him up into the
tree.
And the tree broke at once into
blossom, and the birds came and
sang on it, and the little boy
stretched out his two arms and
flung them round the Giant's
neck, and kissed him.
And the children came running back, and with them came the Spring. 'It is
your garden now, little children,' said the Giant, and he took a great axe
and knocked down the wall.
And when the people were gong to market at twelve o'clock they
found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful
garden they had ever seen. And the giant was never selfish again.
Key Competences
Key Competence
Learning to learn
Activity
Children memorised the words of the songs for our musical.
Children worked in groups to organise the creating of props
and costumes.
Children designed and undertook an experiment to learn
more about our weather systems.
Children took part in self and peer assessment.
Children were part of the planning process in each activity
and had voice in creating next steps in learning.
Interpersonal, intercultural
and social competences
and civic competences
Entrepreneurship
Children got together in working groups to produce props and
costumes.
Children explored the wonder of God’s natural world and
discussed how to protect it.
Children created a rap to give a positive message about
racism.
Cultural Expression
Children performed a musical for parents and the community.
They wrote creative stories.
Children undertook various drawing activities from nature
such as daises and butterflies and trees as they changed
throughout each season.
Children made posters to advertise the play.
Children planted apple trees in the garden.
Children created an area in the classroom to allow tadpoles
to thrive and observed them as they went through
metamorphosis.
Key Competences
Key Competence
Activity
Communication in the
mother tongue
Children came up with vocabulary to describe emotions.
Children wrote stories in which they described their own and
others’ emotions.
Children discussed what they had learned about respect with
peers and teachers.
Children wrote poetry about racism.
Communication in foreign
languages
Children explored language for describing animals and the
weather in French.
Mathematical literacy and
competence in science
and technology
Children observed and recorded the stages of
metamorphosis in a tadpole to a frog.
Children studied the appearance habitat, diet of various
plants , insects and animals.
Children explored symmetry in nature.
Children observed and recorded the weather and made
graphs to display it.
Children used information handling skills to find out about
wildlife in our garden and display results.
Digital competence
Children created Power point presentations,
They used digital cameras to record their work
Children used the internet to research various living things.
Children recorded one another discussing what they had
leaned.