Last term we read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Oh my goodness we had fun with it. Not only is it a great book but we have so many fun activities to go with it.
Dahl Dollars - at the end of Term 1 I was very concerned by the difficulties my students were having with money. Many could not even work out how to put together a dollar. I pondered over the holidays and came up with Dahl Dollars. In class we created money with Roald Dahl's head on the back and a picture from his books on the front. The money was in the same denominations as Australian Money. The children were then able to earn "Dahl Dollars" for good beahviour in the same way they earned stickers for lucky dip prizes in Term 1. 5c equalled 1 sticker. 50c (or 10 x 5c) won them a lucky dip prize.
So far so good but there was of course a twist. The children each had a 'purse' in their desk (a labelled plastic bag) in which they kept their coins. I would open the bank and they could exchange their 5 c coins for bigger coins suchs as 10c, 50c and so on. I made a big deal of students getting the 'big coins' as I was trying to encouarage them to exchange and learn how to put together a dollar from smaller coins. (They had to tell me what coin they could get.)
To encourage team work I also introduced a shopping list of more expensive prizes. They children could save up their money to buy 'free play', 'drama activities', 'pancakes' or the ultimate 'Chocolate surprise'. These were prizes that could be bought by some children who saved and the whole class benefitted from. The children loved counting their coins to see if they had enough money to get free play or even food. The first group of 8 children who bought the class free play I rewarded with certificates in assembly. It was a big deal because they were giving up a lucky dip prize to buy something for the whole class to enjoy. The 'Chocolate Surprise' was the ultimate goal and at $8.35 every child in the whole class gave up at least 1 or 2 lucky dip prizes to win it - and they did. All 20 children donated ( I helped them keep track) and they bought a chocolate surprise. (We made hideously sweet and sticky chocolate drinks with all the trimmings). They loved it so much that they've been asking to have Dahl Dollars back all term - I'm trying to think up a Christmas themed one now for 4th Term.
We also paper mache'd Wonka Words - We created big cardboard cutouts of our favourite words from the book and paper mache'd them into 3D and hung them from the roof. It was great, messy, fun.
You can also buy Roald Dahl magazines which are fantastic and the children couldn't get enough of them. I bought about 12 from the website http://www.magical-world.co.uk/ and they are such an amazing resource. I know of at least 1 child who is now a fortnightly subscriber to the mag.
So if you are doing Roald Dahl or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I hope you enjoy it as much as 2H did.