The Magic of Roald Dahl

I'm not sure whether it's because of Halloween that has just passed or because we're approaching the end of the calendar year with longer nights, but there seems to be something quite magical about this time of the year.  It therefore seems natural to follow the magic that was started at the end of last month from our study of The Witches to get to know more about the world of Roald Dahl.

Although Tiger has read every.single.book written by Roald Dahl several times, I still think we can do a little bit more with some of his books.

The one we picked was George's Marvellous Medicine.  There is no particular reason for choosing this book over any other of Roald Dahl's books, except because we were able to catch a theatre production of it in a nearby town:

Instead of making potions based on the book, Tiger found a group to do shared-reading and discussions with (very similar to a book club).

After the discussion, Tiger made the scene of grandma popping out of the roof using paper and a cereal box:

We find the following autobiographies to be particularly helpful for getting to know the author:

So is the following three-part documentary:

After working so hard to learn about someone, wouldn't it be a shame not to not follow up by going on a related field trip to, say, The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre?

The museum is as interesting inside as is the trail outside.

Inspirations for Roald Dahl's stories are dotted all around:

Replica of the interior of Roald Dahl's writing hut.

"Fantastic Mr. Fox"

"The Enormous Crocodile"

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" - the door to the gallery is made to look and smell like chocolate bars!

The BFG's enormous sandal and the row of houses opposite the museum that was the inspiration for Sophie's house.  The BFG peered through one of the windows into Sophie's room.

"Boy" - Roald Dahl's autobiography of his childhood.

"Matilda" - We saw Miss Honey's classroom, the nearby library where Matilda went by herself to read, and the road sign that points to where her mother would have gone to play bingo every afternoon.

"Danny and the Champion of the World" - the petrol pump that Danny's dad would have used in his garage.

It is quite an amazing and magical museum for children, with many activity station to engage the children in their imagation and to encourage creative writing.  Tiger spent most of his time in the museum dressed up as a leopard, costume courtesy of the museum.

A short walking distance away is Roald Dahl's grave.  It is located at the top of a quiet hill, and has the BFG's footprints leading up to the grave stone.

This post is linked up to:

1. Entertaining and Educational - Nov 8, 2013
2. Collage Friday: 100 Boxes and a Comedy of Errors
3. Weekly Wrap Up: Dates, Drivers, and Divergent
4. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {November 9, 2013}
5. Hip Homeschool Hop - 11/12/2013

Bewitching Tales

Since Halloween is just around the corner, we did some work based on the book, The Witches.  We started off using the corresponding Read & Respond activity book to aid in our study, but soon abandoned it due to the activities being too 'schooly' for us.

Instead, we read the story through once, listened to the audio book version (where Tiger pointed out quite a number of omissions from the original book), and watched the classic film based on the story.

I had never watched the film before so I was more interested than Tiger to watch Angelica Houston's wonderful depiction of the Grand High Witch.  However, Tiger was somewhat irritated by the numerous alterations or as Tiger called it, "inconsistencies", in the film (he's a purist when it comes to being "true to the original story") because he has read the story so many times that he can memorise it.  As such, my film recommendation didn't go down well with him at all.

After the unsuccessful start, we moved on to more the productive activity of research.  I asked Tiger to read as many books on witches and witchcraft as he could get his hands on.

Part of our research into witches consists of watching the following documentary, which Tiger didn't mind:

After the research, I asked Tiger to illustrate what he thought a witch would look like.  I thought his drawings show the sense of innocence and lack of horror in the pure heart of a child:

The witch disguised as a normal-looking woman carrying a handbag.

The witch in her real form: a hideous non-human creature.

You can hear the description of a witch from the Roald Dahl himself:

Tiger also made a few items that are commonly associated with witches: foam spider, spider web (made from paper plate and yarn), and a multi-eyed creature.

He then decided to complete this study by making a few spells of his own, after looking into it using The Guide to Wizards of the World.  I don't know what his spells are, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were about having more fun days and field trips.  Life can be very hard when your mother puts you to work all the time.

This post is linked up to:

1. Look What We Did!
2. Hip Homeschool Hop - 10/29/2013
3. Entertaining and Educational - Letter Learning Obstacle Course
4. Collage Friday - Math, Friendship, Shoeboxes & More
5. Creative Learning On Friday #19
6. TGIF Linky Party #100
7. Weekly Wrap Up: The One with the Solo Drive
8. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {November 2, 2013}