Jack-o-Lanterns and Folktales

To give my students an opportunity to learn about a different culture and a holiday and tradition it practices, I gave an assignment to create their own Jack-o-Lantern and to also write a folktale to go along with it.

I looked up a folktale of the generation of the Jack-o-Lantern, from a christian perspective, that led to someone making a good choices.  We were studying folktales at that time in our grammar class.  And to increase their personal learning and interest I asked the students to write their own folktale about the generation of the Jack-o-Lantern.  The folktale had to have characters, and a moral lesson to learn.

For a little more fun, I presented to the students three different Jack-o-Lanterns that I had made from construction paper.  They were to make their own personal Jack-o-Lantern using their own creativity.  The Jack-o-Lanterns now hang from my classroom ceiling as decoration and as a reminder of their work and folktales.