The Three Little Bears-Traditional or Folk Literature

The Three Little Bears by Joseph Jacobs is about a curious little girl who decides to take a trip through the woods.  When she comes upon a house she decides to see if anybody is home, and to her surprise it is empty.  Without thinking twice she walks in and sees three bowls of porridge.  She tries all three but finds the big bowl to be too hot, and the middle bowl to be too cold, but the little bowl just right, so she eats it all up, Next she goes over to the three chairs and tries each out. The big chair was too hard and the medium chair was too soft but the small chair was just right so she sits in it until she breaks the bottom through.  After all that she gets tired so she decides to go upstairs and sees three beds.  The big beds pillow is too high, and the medium beds pillow is too flat, but the little bed is just perfect for her afternoon nap.  When mamma bear, daddy bear and baby bear come home they notice their stuff has been messed with so they begin to look around.  After making their way upstairs baby bear finds the little girl.   She hears the baby bears high voice, wakes up, and in fear of the bears runs away as fast as she can.  An to this day the bears have never seen that little girl again, it may be because she got hurt on her way home, or because she was grounded for skipping school, but that is something we will never know!  This story is one of my favorites because I remember my parents reading it to me when I was younger.  Reading this story to young kids is great because it allows them to use their imagination.  For an activity with this I would have my students write an ending to what happened to the little girl after she left the house.  This would allow them to use their imagination and be creative; it would also help them with their writing skills.  I think it would be really interested to hear what ideas they could come up with about how the legend ends.  Also, I think the students would really like it if they could share their ending to the class themselves!