Roald Dahl Day September 13

Today is a day to celebrate a wonderful UK writer named Roald Dahl. You can download two lovely free products each September from: https://roalddahl.com/news/activity-pack-2023/ and if you are in need of teaching materials for individual books some sweet freebies can be downloaded instantly throughout the year at: https://roalddahl.com/teach He was born September 13, 1916 in Llandaff, Wales and died Novemeber 23, 1990 in Oxford England. He was a, "British writer, a popular author of ingenious and irreverent children’s books. Awards And Honors: Costa Book Awards (1983) Notable Works: “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” “James and the Giant Peach” “Kiss, Kiss” “Matilda” “Matilda the Musical” “Someone Like You” “The BFG” “The Enormous Crocodile” “The Witches” “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” “You Only Live Twice” Notable Family Members: spouse Patricia Neal. Following his graduation from Repton, a renowned British public school, in 1932, Dahl avoided a university education and joined an expedition to Newfoundland. He worked from 1937 to 1939 in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika (now in Tanzania), but he enlisted in the Royal Air Force (RAF) when World War II broke out. Flying as a fighter pilot, he was seriously injured in a crash landing in Libya. He served with his squadron in Greece and then in Syria before doing a stint (1942–43) as assistant air attaché in Washington, D.C. (during which time he also served as a spy for the British government). There the novelist C.S. Forester encouraged him to write about his most exciting RAF adventures, which were published by the Saturday Evening Post. Dahl then turned primarily to writing the children’s books that would give him lasting fame. Unlike most other books aimed at a young audience, Dahl’s works had a darkly comic nature, frequently including gruesome violence and death. His villains were often malevolent adults who imperiled precocious and noble child protagonists. James and the Giant Peach (1961; film 1996), written for his own children, was a popular success, as was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), which was made into the films Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). His other works for young readers include Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970; film 2009), Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972), The Enormous Crocodile (1978), The BFG (1982; films 1989 and 2016), and The Witches (1983; film 1990). One of his last such books, Matilda (1988), was adapted for film (1996 and 2022) and the stage (2010).While Dahl focused primarily on children’s literature late in his career, he continued to produce short stories for adult audiences during this time, which were published in collections such as Switch Bitch (1974), The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, and Six More (1977), and Tales of the Unexpected (1979). Dahl also wrote several scripts for movies, among them You Only Live Twice (1967) and (with Ken Hughes and Richard Maibaum) Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). His autobiography, Boy: Tales of Childhood, was published in 1984. " Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roald-Dahl

Searching through the TpT store we found a divine resource at a reasonable price of $2.00USD offered by Tanesha B Forman at: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Rigorous-Short-Story-Lesson-Plan-Lamb-to-the-Slaughter-by-Roald-Dahl-1765595 This inspired us to find something we could watch. We discovered a series called Tales of the Unexpected with every episode having an introduction by the real Roald Dahl, such a treat! 

Lamb to the Slaughter was the first one we selected to view, which you can enjoy too: https://youtu.be/zAPw-uFhqjA?si=pwdx95R0BUMXHhxw 

This was followed by: The Landlady: https://youtu.be/sWhBej5r07o?si=f-880dnRejjc6yXB

The Umberella Man: https://youtu.be/vy7cuOjEUqc?si=WaCGcsGMKXgJH0fr

Back for Christmas: https://youtu.be/QKcHM7Kl_Cs?si=y1rdSrxavjYBIHUb 

We also found a cute Lego version of Lamb to the Slaughter: https://youtu.be/pMs68hXcoes?si=ijAANR30-XJ6_Gdb

Referencing a section of Tanesha's resource Barron did a renactment as a detective on the scene and filled out a police report. I made him some evidence markers, a fake blood and man scene, and he repurposed a bubble wrap mailing packet by painting a lamb chop. Here are some pictures:

Barron completed a sheet from Matilda the movie listing positive and negative characteristics of each character created by Charlie White and free to download at his TpT shop:  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Matilda-Character-Traits-4878116 when he was stuck he was encouraged reference a Character Traits List feeebie from the shop Coast to Coast Teacher: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Character-Traits-List-Free-3822655 which lists great words to describe positive qualities and negative traits. I am not permitted to show it on the blog, however it is very useful.

We also created a Venn Diagram comparing the four episodes of the Tales of the Unexpected that we watched:

If you need a free template on Venn Diagrams this is helpful from Janna Green-Coastal Teaching shop: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Freebie-Venn-Diagram-for-Compare-Contrast-2059881

The book "Boy" By Roald Dahl and Illustrated by Quentin Blake is not an autobiography, but a gathering of stories from his youth by him. 

                                   

                           

We read the tale Games and Photography and learnt the Roald was good at playing a game called Fives at his school Repton, which is similar to tennis and he was super great at photography informing us that photographs were created on glass plates not film rolls, so an artist was limited on the number of clicks of the camera one could make. 

                            

His retiring Arts Master Mr. Arthur Norris organized an exhibition of Roald's photographs. He helped to frame his photographs and would often discuss painters with Roald in his spare time. Artist, "like Cezanne and Manet and Matissse, and I have a feeling that it was there, having tea with the gentle soft-spoken Mr. Norris in his flat on Sunday afternoons that my great love of painters and their work began." Pg 203. He was 18 and won prizes and medals from the Egyptian Photographic Society of Cairo, The Royal photographic Society in London and Photographic Society of Holland. He took a pic of the Arch of Ctesiphon in Iraq in 1940 when he was training for the RAF in his old Hawker Hart biplane over the desert he swooped down and captured this moment: