pening to the first story, the children noticed something similar about all of their books. The riddle was beginning to make sense.

Each book contained folk tales from various parts of the world. These tales are found in the links below.
Step 1-Just click on a book and choose the story you would like to read. Every member of your group must choose a different folk tale to read, so get together and tell eachother which one you have chosen then start reading.

Folktales for Children	Whootie's Stories to Grow by	European Folk Tales	Folktale Collection

After the children read their stories, they were anxious to tell eachother about what they had read. As they shared, it suddenly occured to them what the next part of the riddle meant.

These tales had many similarities. In order to help them clearly see the similarities and differences, they created a chart that compared each of the stories they had read.
Step 2-Click here to print a copy of their chart and use it to compare the stories your group members read. On the side of the chart, record the title of each story, as well as the name of the country from which it came.

With that task completed, the children were ready to tackle the next part of the riddle.

That was easy enough - or was it? The tales they read had similarities, but they were also different in many ways. Creating stories was fun, but could they make their stories similar to those they read without copying the ideas? Being the clever children that they were, they created a graphic organizer to guide them in writing their stories.
Step 3-Print a copy of their graphic organizer, and fill in your story ideas before you begin to write. Use the writing process and begin with a rough draft. Your group members will be happy to edit for you before you have a copy ready to publish.

Eager to start their stories, the children begin searching for paper and pencils. The last part of the riddle was the most important.

If they were successful in creating these stories they would find out just what went on in this building so many years ago. As they began to write, a sudden gust of wind ripped through a broken window pane. Dust from the shelves scattered throughout the room. As the dust settled, the children looked up to see a single sheet of paper drifting down from the highest shelf. The paper was weathered and wrinkled and appeared to contain some sort of code or message. These were obviously the guidelines for creating their stories.
Step 4-Read the message on the page to make sure your story also follows these guidelines so that the RYRILAB will once again return to its original state.

When you have finished
all four steps