Fairy tales are fantastic and fractured fairy tales offer fun and quirky twists on those stories that we love.

The Princess and the Pea is one of my favourite stories! So sharing it with the students was a lot of fun.

This week I shared two “alternatives” to the classic Princess and the Pea story.

First we read Mini Grey‘s The Very Smart Pea and the Princess-to-Be

This book is told from the perspective of the pea! A pea, who plays quite an active role in the outcome of this tale . . .

Later that same day we read The Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas written by Tony Wilson and illustrated by Sue deGennaro

Our art projects were inspired by these books but I got my original inspiration from my favourite Art Blog, Deep Space Sparkle that highlighted these wonderfully whimsical Princess and the Pea projects. Princess beds, a hidden pea, glitter crowns . . . This project was a lot of fun!

What we did:

First, we drew elaborate princess beds using black crayons (I love that my students get so excited with art projects that they just jump right in and don’t worry about pencils first and everything being perfect!)

Next we piled on the mattresses!

Then we added a princess and started adding colour to decorations to the mattresses. We used oil pastels to add rich colours.

It was then time to add glitter to the crown. We did this before adding paint so that the glitter wouldn’t stick to the wet paint. Children used tiny paint brushes to add white glue on their crowns and then sprinkled gold glitter to cover. We also added a hidden pea at the bottom of the mattresses. Can you spot it in the picture below?

On day two, we painted – adding colour to each mattress and to the background. This princess below is thinking about royalty!

Some students painted all mattresses the same colour for a very effective/colour coordinated look.

Doesn’t this princess look peaceful on her pile of pastel coloured mattresses?

I love that this princess is perched on a pile of precariously balanced mattresses! One mattress is even a glitter mattress!

Doesn’t this princess look peaceful? I have the feeling a pea isn’t keeping her up!

This princess makes it very clear that she cannot sleep! Oh those pesky peas!