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Activity 1: The Ant and the Grasshopper

The fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper” emphasizes the importance of hard work and planning versus laziness.
After you read the fable, you can turn it into a short play by making finger puppets and acting it out together.

The Activity

  • Reading the fable: The Ant and the Grasshopper (in La Fontaine’s Fables).
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  • Creating finger puppets from colorful felt:
    Making a finger sleeve using a strip 5 cm long and 4-5 cm wide.
    Fold it in half and sew it with a simple stitch using embroidery floss on two sides.
    On top, pieces of colorful felt can be glued, and the fable can be acted out.
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  • Comparing the fable to the Book of Proverbs 6 (6-11):
    6  Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise.
    7  Which having no chief, overseer, or ruler,
    8  Provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.
    9  How long will you sleep, O sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep?
    10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep;
    11 So shall your poverty come as a robber, and your want as an armed man.
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  • Reading the poem A Lazy One / Ephraim Sidon (from “Songs in Juice”).
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