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Roald Dahl Day Activities
Is anyone else as excited as we are at PBHQ about Roald Dahl Day this year? A children’s author that needs no introduction, whose stories are ingrained in children and adults far and wide.
To mark the occasion this year, we have compiled a handy list of activity ideas to get your creative juices flowing. Before jumping in, click here to see our entire Roald Dahl collection, you won’t be disappointed!
1. Who is Roald Dahl?
Dedicate a lesson to the man himself. Find out about his childhood, his inspiration and how he became a household name! We have planned a special lesson on just this! Roald Dahl | Special People | KS2 is a ready-to-teach lesson, with detailed planning, slides for input and differentiated activities.
Children could also do their own research on Roald Dahl, making a fact file or group presentation. Our Roald Dahl Facts for Children blog is perfect to support their learning.
Roald Dahl 1954
2. Book Reviews
List all of Roald Dahl’s stories as a class. Ask children to think about which story is their favourite and why. Children can then go and write a book review of their chosen story, explaining what the story is about, why it’s their favourite and who they would recommend it to. Looking for a KS1 book review template? We’ve got you covered!
3. Design a Front Cover
This would follow on nicely from writing their own book reviews. Children could redesign their favourite Roald Dahl book cover. These could make a fantastic Roald Dahl inspired display!
4. Roald Dahl Films
Watch clips from your favourite Roald Dahl films and use them as a stimulus for an activity. For example, watch the clip where James takes a bite of the giant peach, ask children to imagine how it tasted, can they describe it?
Or watch part of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and ask children to design a new piece of confectionary for Willy Wonka. Activity sheets to support this can be found here.
5. Whole-Class Reading
Choose a Roald Dahl book as a class to read across the week. Have a dedicated time at the end of the day to settle into a nice story. Maybe you would like to choose The Magic Finger and incorporate some reading comprehension into your week.
6. Wanted!
Discuss all of Roald Dahl’s gruesome characters and ask children to make a wanted poster for their favourite baddy! From the Bloodbottler in The BFG to Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, there are plenty of horrible characters to choose from!
7. On your marks... get set, Bake!
Has anyone else ever wanted to take a bite of that amazing Chocolate cake that Boris Bogtrotter manages to consume in Roald Dahl’s Matilda?
Why not plan a lesson around writing instructions/recipes on how to make Miss Trunchbull’s famous Chocolate cake… and then allow children to follow their instructions to bake their own version!
8. Literacy Learning
Plan your Literacy lessons around one of Roald Dahl’s famous stories. Maybe look at The BFG Character Descriptions or choose from descriptive writing, play scripts, non-chronological reports and more with our The Twits English Pack.
This image is taken from our The BFG Character Description lesson pack.
9. Word Jumble
Challenge children to make up their own nonsensical words and definitions, just like The BFG. Children could take turns saying their nonsense word to a partner who has to try and work out what it is/what it means!
“‘The matter with human beans,’ the BFG went on, ‘is that they is absolutely refusing to believe anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles.’” The BFG, Roald Dahl
10. Character Conversations
Using these Roald Dahl Character Descriptions Cards, give the children two matching character descriptions and names. Challenge them to imagine a conversation the two characters might have if they met. The children could role-play these conversations in pairs or write a script of the conversation.
More ideas on how to use these Character Cards are listed on the Teacher notes as part of the download!
To find out more about how we can integrate Roald Dahl into our classrooms, check out this blog on What important lessons can Roald Dahl stories teach our children?
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